Google+ Blocked My Furry Account

[slycat]

I suppose I was kinda asking for it. I have two Google+ accounts, one for my real self that I have work colleagues and the like on, and one for my furry self. There's been much chatter about Google removing accounts which did not have a real name associated with them as detailed in their Community Standards but I chose to ignore it assuming they'd never bother with my account and the countless other furry pseudonyms on there.

Now everyone and his mother who has a furry account seemed to be adding me to their circles on Google+ and so I mostly ignore the people I don't know. However I saw two instances of people who were acting as companies who were just advertising their services so I rather naively reported them to Google. It seems this was enough to make Google aware of my profile and as of this evening, my account has been suspended due to violation of their aforementioned Community Standards.

So you have the option to appeal just by clicking a link which resubmits the profile for review assuming you've changed whatever was in violation, but they don't explicitly state what is in violation. I considered changing my name to a more real sounding name and changing my profile picture to a real picture but I figured what's the point? If I did that then it would negate the whole point of having a furry account.

I could add furs to my real account but I spend a lot of time ensuring my work/family life does not blend with my furry life. It's something I've done for 14 years now and I'm not going to change just because Google says I should.

Comments

[xellimon.livejournal.com]

Furries are people's expressions too! Aren't they?

[slycat.livejournal.com]

That would be my argument. It's my online persona.

[ravellwolf.livejournal.com]

That isn't of value to Google though. For the same reason as Facebook mandated use of real names, so Google is now. They simply want your details to sell to the highest bidder.

They are not they are not providing a service to you as a customer, rather you are the product to be sold to an advertiser, who is their real customer.

It's one of the many reasons I hate Facebook and why I also am not interested in Google+. But it seems the majority of people have forgotten about online security and keeping personal details private. I recently shocked my dad with how much I could find out about him, I was very close to being able to take his identity and that was with little effort. Most other people aren't protected any better.

You can search for my real name online, but you'll find barely anything, definitely nothing of value. For that reason alone, companies like Facebook and Google don't want me.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

Reading their AUP, which says they allow nicknames but not pseudonyms, it sounds as though they're cool with whatever you want to put in the first name field as long as your surname matches your legal name. Then again, they also say your name should be "whatever friends, family, and co-workers call you", without taking into account that it's easy to have a nickname that you use for one of those groups but not others.

I've heard that there's a feature that lets you display different names to different circles (although you have to use the same profile picture for all of them). Since your profile picture is within the AUP (which just says it can't be offensive), perhaps change your profile name to your real name but then not associate it with any circles?

But overall I agree ... having a social networking service tell you how you must represent yourself socially is fairly obnoxious, especially when they make the assumption (as both Google+ and Facebook do) that the primary way you want to represent yourself to your friends must be the same face that you present to family and co-workers.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I was debating whether or not to join G+. Question answered.

[doco.livejournal.com]

I think they still need to finetune their bot pretending to be customer service. :P

These days, due to the sheer volume of users, most of this stuff happens automatically, and their bot doesn't seem to be that bright yet.

Besides, I'm just waiting for someone to step forward and give Google Germany GmbH a good old whack in the head with §13 (6) TMG just to remind them that their automated process is on really thin ice in jurisdictions outside the US. ^.^

[tilt-longtail.livejournal.com]

I recently TOTALLY deleted my youtube account because google was constantly logging me out of one place and into another. (I am on a pinball google group several times a day) I opened another youtube account just because and for some unknown reason it gave me the same username as my email , which is NOT the same as my username on google groups, and there is no way to change it, so I am really confused.
I could go on and on here but I would say just stick with LJ. We have all been here for years, and evey one is saying it is dying, but slowly people are coming back because they are having problems with facebook or twitter or google + or whatever new social networking site will be out next week.

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

Snap o_o

Do you think I could make some cash with some 'I'm too furry for Google+ t-shirts?'

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Damn. I guess it's easy to search for pokemon names and ban anyone using one. I was naive enough to think I was safe. I can see the rest of the furry accounts going this way pretty soon sadly.

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

Except my name isn't. 'Nidonocu' is a completely unique word for which searching online will return nothing except content related to me. I suppose those 'Poison-Bunny', my 'surname' might of caught their algorithm's eye.

[whitepaw.livejournal.com]

Similar requirements from Yahoo! email about 13 years ago lead to my furry email account having firstname "Whitepaw" surname "le Loupgarou". Perhaps you can do something similar?

[bezel101.livejournal.com]

Well, I've not put an avatar photo on there yet, I've given myself a "surname" of sorts, and the email address I'm using matches my name on there. We shall see what they make of this slightly unusual sounding name and whether they suspend the account or not...

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

That's really annoying! I only have huskyteer@gmail.com so I can look at the office calendar...