A social media platform's content, culture and market value is shaped by their approach to identity. There are 3 main approaches to identity on modern social networks: Authentic (e.g. Facebook), Pseudonymous (e.g. Reddit, Twitter, Instagram), and Anonymous (e.g. Secret, Whisper). In this article, I will dive into the pros and cons of each of these approaches, then share some vision for the future. I will focus on the essence of each approach, and I will ignore nuanced and unrelated considerations regarding any particular platform.

Authentic Identities

"Authentic" means that users must register with the name they use in real life (which is not necessarily their legal name). Facebook is one of the world's most successful companies in part thanks to its authentic name policy. They earn billions in revenue with highly sophisticated ad targeting and have created a more connected world in the process. They have also been criticized in part due to their name policy.

Pros:

• Empowers real relationships to stay connected online.
• Reduces cyberbullying and abuse.
• Creates a commerce-friendly foundation that makes it easy to expand into new product areas, such as private messaging, money transfers, dating, finding a job, ticket sales, etc.
• Promotes feelings of connection and community.
• Creates sense of confidence that you can find your peers without worry that they might be using the platform under a name that you wouldn't recognize.

Cons:

• Lacks a safe environment for people to fully express themselves without fear of persecution from their peers, employer, or government.
• When the platform gets hacked, the stakes are at their highest.

I believe Facebook's authentic name policy will continue to be their most valuable asset because it acts as a foundation that fuels its growth into new markets.

Pseudonymous Identities

Pseudonymous networks have also enjoyed huge success for companies like Reddit, Twitter and Instagram. Users of these platforms are free to choose their display names which can represent either their real identity or a pseudonym.

Pros:

• Empowers users to build a brand and reputation around a protected identity that is not their real name.
• Increases privacy for those who choose to engage with a pseudonym.
• Promotes self-expression.
• Empowers communities that would otherwise never exist due to social stigmas.

Cons:

• Privacy is limited because posts and comments can be used to reveal a user's identity based on their literary style.
• Users tend not to share information about their personal lives because the networks are not as conducive to real life relationships.
• Lacks a foundation that fuels development into new markets. (i.e. Reddit will never introduce a dating app).
• Even though it's possible to create and manage multiple accounts, it's inconvenient because each account requires a unique email address or phone number. This prevents users from having the luxury of being able to choose whether to engage as their real identities or as a pseudonym. (More on that below).

Pseudonymous networks have strategically positioned themselves as distinctly different from Authentic networks like Facebook. In reality, it's impossible for these networks to compete with Facebook in their market because of the nature of their name policies.

Anonymous Identities

Anonymous networks share many of the benefits and downsides to pseudonymous networks, but they are notorious for problems. Most attempts fail.

Pros:

• The most powerful tool for self-expression.
• Creates a safe environment for people to fully express themselves without fear of persecution from their peers, employer, or government.
• Benefits from better security than pseudonymous networks because posts and comments can't be connected across threads.

Cons:

• Difficult to fight abuse.
• Lacks the opportunity build a brand.
• Exclusively anonymous networks have a bad reputation which causes low interest from normal people.
• Often the place people go when they get banned from other mainstream networks.
• Often associated with teen suicide.

October: A Mixed Approach

We're building a social network called October which attempts a mixed approach to identity.

October's name originates from early-internet slang. It all started with a general purpose computer network communication system called Usenet. Before 1993, it was used primarily by universities for chatrooms. Early chatrooms were small and had distinctive cultures, also known as netiquette. Every September, an influx of university freshmen joined Usenet, and this caused a temporary disruption in the social norms of these communities. In the September of 1993, AOL began to offer Usenet access to its many users, overwhelming the existing culture indefinitely. Thus this event was termed the Eternal September. October is a solution to the Eternal September problem.

Users can engage as their authentic identities or anonymously. This mixed approach provides all the benefits of other mainstream networks, and we've introduced novel ways to combat the downsides of previous anonymous networks.

October prevents abuse by adding a cost to posting anonymously, in addition to sophisticated algorithms that automatically organize the social graph based on user behavior.

We've introduced a currency called October Coins which powers the attention economy. Coins are earned by posting content that other users find valuable. If a user earns enough Coins while posting as themselves, they get access to spend those Coins on the ability to post anonymously. This ensures that the user has proven value to the community before being given access to posting anonymously. If a user posts too many anonymous posts which don't get enough positive attention, they run out of Coins which prevents them from being able to post anonymously.

This allows our users to build a personal brand, and express themselves fully without fear of their family seeing it.

We're exploring ways to further improve anonymous security by removing any connection to your real account after some amount of time after it's posted. Eventually we'd like to expand the product to be conducive to engaging with communities and also with friends and family.

Please try it out and let me know what you think! You can signup with my invite code here.