Been reviewing account applications and noticed that a lot of them just have the person’s actual name in the username, complete with them saying that it’s their real name in the registration questions.
I just want to comment that I don’t think it’s good to be doing that, especially if you have certain political affiliations that Western governments might not like (communism, socialism, not going to dance around it). I have still approved your accounts if you did this as it doesn’t break the rules, but frankly I recommend you make a new account with a more anonymous username and don’t post under your real name. Keep the account with your real name if you want but don’t make it your main. Lemmy, just like Reddit, is meant to be pseudoanonymous, and especially considering all the controversy and friction that the influx of new users are causing and the presence of people who seem to be here just to pick a fight, I just think it’s a bad idea to put any sort of personal information on here that other people, trolls and assholes included, can exploit. I certainly haven’t put my personal information on here and I’m an admin.
This goes double for profile pictures of your face or anyone you know. Though I haven’t seen much of that.
While this is true, I would assume that any forum such as this, which is created and run by people who ascribe to such politics, is already under observation by various governments.
It can also be assumed that they already know your IP and can get around any privacy-enhancing and security-enhancing options you have chosen to use. Thus they very likely already know your real name and all accounts associated with it. It is very, very difficult to not be watched by nation-state actors.
This does not mean that OP has not given good advice, it is still very good advice.
If the government really wants to come for you there’s little you can do, but I’m more concerned about your average basement troll who may have gotten really pissed off during one of the debates/flamewars that have been popping up and is looking to get even. We’ve already had to ban some… interesting characters… and I just don’t want to give them any easy targets from this site.
Absolutely, forgive me for my quick edit where I made more clear that I still think it is very good advice.