Because let’s say you’re Tom Hanks. And you get TomHanks@Lemmy.World
Well, what’s stopping someone else from adopting TomHanks@Lemm.ee?
And some platforms minimize the text size of platform, or hide it entirely. So you just might see TomHanks, and think it’s him. But it’s actually a 7 year old Chinese boy with a broken leg in Arizona.
Because anyone can grab the same name, on a different platform.
Discord and email worked for a long time with needing something extra after the name. Why would the fediverse be different?
What’s stopping that same 7 year old taking TomHanks@Lemmy.World before the real Tom Hanks even knows about Lemmy?
It’s not the lack of unique usernames that’s a problem. It’s the lack of identity verification. Which, I mean, understandably is lacking because it’s not like there are high profile people making accounts here. Well, except of course for Margot Robbie.
If “TomHanks” is his username on every other service, like twitter, and youtube, and tiktok, and instagram, then he would want to use it when he comes to the fediverse. Now, if only ONE person can have the username TomHanks (and it just so happens to be @Lemmy.World), then he could send a cease and disist letter, and if that doesn’t work, a lawsuit. Madonna did it in the 90s with Madonna.com.
However, if TomHanks@Lemmy.World can exist, and TomHanks@Lemm.ee can exist, and TomHanks@piefed.social can exist and…and…and…then it gets a little impossible for him to really own that username, because it can be duplicated on an infinate amount of instances, some that may not even exist when he shows up to the fediverse.
But if only one instance can have TomHanks, than he could absolutely show courts he’s had a vested interest and usership of that identity and thus that’s HIS username. Even on services he’s never signed up for. Like if he doesn’t have an instagram account at all, but someone else starts using TomHanks on instagram, he can take it to the courts that they are not allowed to do that, because that’s his username.
But the way the fediverse is currently set up right now, that’s not feasible. Because he could enter a court battle with TomHanks@Lemm.ee, and then 5 more instances with his username popup. And eventually it becomes harder and harder to prove that people know his ownership of that username if there’s 500 other people also using the same username. It’s the reason you can’t email celebrities. They can’t control their presence in email, so they don’t use that as their identity.
I see this as a benefit. Generally speaking celebrity posts are the most useless threads on most platforms.
Yes, but you see. Lemmy users generally don’t give a flat fuck about what celebrities want.
A celebrity can host their own domain to prove authenticity.
So what. On Xitter I can make an account called Tom.Hanks and get the blue mark by paying Elon. Because Tom Hanks has the username Tom_Hanks.
You’re missing the point. You can have Tom.Hanks@twitter.com but you can’t have Tom_Hanks@othertwitter.com
So when you come to the fediverse, instead of searching for Tom_Hanks@tomhanks.com, you just search for Tom_Hanks, and the fediverse will know that defaults to the account Tom_Hanks. Which is the same account on Lemmy, the same account on Peertube, the same account on pixelfed.
Because it’s all Tom_Hanks.
Except Tom@TomHanks.com will come up first because they will surely have the most fooloerrs.
fooloerrs
Typo, but kind of a cool word too. Like people who would fool around
