"The investor Mark Cuban called for a real-name policy on services like Twitter, arguing that 'there needs to be a single human behind every individual account.'"

"That’s a terrible idea... it would endanger marginalized people without improving trust. But Cuban’s reform does square with the Times’ take on virtue and wickedness at Twitter. Just shine light upon the shadows of the black market to put an end to the corruption. Then ordinary folk can be freed from the lust for fame that would rob them of their true selves. But this is a fairy-tale story about the internet. Fraud is not the ultimate problem with fake social-media activity. The hustle itself is the blight. It produces the racket that sucks so many into its orbit.... There is a pride in having built a platform for attention, and there is also a shame in feeling pride for it. To boast that one’s followers are all 'real,' or to call for a near future in which that state of affairs is insured, is just to affirm the virtue of the system. This is the back that must be broken for anyone to feel free on social media."

From "All Followers Are Fake Followers/A New York Times exposé of a 'black market' for online fame diagnoses the symptom of social-media despair, but misses its cause" by Ian Bogost (in The Atlantic).