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Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

anonymousfriendContributor06 Mar 2021, 4:37 am AEDT

Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

This site (SANE) makes your username searchable so if you have an account on Twitter, Pinterest or any other site and you have used the same username a Google search will bring up all the sites where you have used that name and link this account to your real name so anyone you know can see everything you have posted here. This is just an PSA as it happened to me.

I did not feel I got any warning my username on this site would be searchable. I have looked at about 20 usernames on here and of them I found the real name of 6 people on the first search. Other sites with real names included Instagram, DeviantArt, Twitch, YouTube -- all of these accounts might be associated with your real name and the username you often use and decided to use here.

You can see an example screen shot I took of a search (which I annonomysed) on Imgur here: https://imgur.com/a/w62DNRV

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In response to: Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

Unknown userMember06 Mar 2021, 5:42 pm AEDT

Re: Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

Well now I am freaking out!!! I have already emailed the Sane team, but it's going to be long wait till someone can get back to me. Thank you for sharing

In response to: Re: Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

anonymousfriendContributor07 Mar 2021, 4:38 am AEDT

Re: Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

@Former-Member Good luck! I also freaked out when I saw my name out there. I hope you stay safe and manage to get your identity back under your control. Let me know if I can help at all and please share with others, so many people on this site are not safe.

In response to: Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

Unknown userMember07 Mar 2021, 11:19 am AEDT

Re: Google your username - if you've ever used it before your posts here can be identified!

Well, the first version of my most recent post was taken down because I mentioned my username that I use for YouTube and Instagram. They have an anonymity rule, saying that you have to keep yourself anonymous in posts. Unfortunately, that only extends so far. My username here and on YouTube and Instagram are completely anonymous though.

Any usernames or posts that included people's real names certainly shouldn't have slipped through the net, but you also have to take some personal responsibility for that too, in my opinion.

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