tom_wake's profile

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Tuesday, September 10th, 2024 9:09 AM

Solved

Apparently actors can censor their own credits in the database?!

I've recently been having a very interesting conversation with the Help Desk, where it turns out that some information has been censored on the database because the actress concerned has actually had it redacted and put a block on it.

I've been contributing data for over 20 years and in all that time, whenever an actor or actress has come here asking to have their credits removed, they are always given the same response: that IMDb strives to be the most complete movie database and it is not their policy to remove factual information. Which is quite fair enough in my view, but if the policy is to publish movie credits and birth information against that person's will (when necessary), what's happened here? And this isn't even any sensitive personal information! It's just an "as..." attribute for an already-listed credit, something that it clearly visible in the end credits of the film. Unless there's some kind of legal injunction on that name, but I'm struggling to think of a reason why that might be necessary and which doesn't apply to any of their other credits.

To summarise the situation: a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that one of the credits on this film uses the attribute "(as a different name)" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118125/fullcredits

Now, I assumed this was some kind of placeholder; that someone had somehow known she was credited under a different name, but not what it was, although I had no idea how that was possible, nor why "a different name" wasn't showing as an alternate name in her profile. But as it happens, I have access to a recording of this particular film, so I went to the update form to correct it.

I'm not going to use the actual name from the credits here, in case it gets myself or IMDb into any kind of legal trouble, but when I tried to correct the attribute to "as Credited Name", I received the following error message and couldn't continue:

The as attribute "as Credited Name" is not eligible for submission.

Here is the reference number for the submission, which I have been unable to complete: 240831-152808-750200

The update form allows any other name to be entered in that space; for example, if I remove any single letter (e.g. "Credited Nam"), the error message disappears, so it's only something that happens when trying to enter this exact name. In two decades I have never seen this happen before so, thinking it must be some technical error, I queried it with the Help Desk. They replied:

I can see "Kat L Robertson" has chosen to hide their alternative credited names as such any changes we make from our end will not have any affect.

Not sure what we can do here there since there hasn't been any such incident like this before.

I will confer with our staff and circle back to you once we have an update.

Thanks for your patience.

A week later, I wrote back to see if there was any update. They responded:

I will have to reach out the name owner and request them to release the hold on their credited alternate name.

And let them know that we have corrected this from our side and it is no longer necessary to have it hidden.

But I am not sure as to when will the account owner will see our message and amend their credited alternate name.

In that aspect we are as clueless as you are.

If the customer responds back acknowledging our message then you will be swiftly notified.

I was rather hoping the individual's squeamishness about their film credits could just be overridden as usual, but it does sound like the staff's hands are tied for whatever reason. Is there really no way of updating this, except at the whim of the actress? Either way, from a data contributor's point of view I'd love to know how this happened and why it's an exception to all the usual "most complete database" rhetoric!

Champion

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4 months ago

Tom: There have been a number of discussions along these lines on this message board, including one about this particular credit. 

While the (as a different name) option may have been intended to allow people to suppress their alternative names for privacy reasons, Col Needham has commented on this board, "We must offer this service to anyone who requests it as otherwise that itself could be viewed as discrimination."

However, we have seen that this option option is also being used to suppress name variations such as the inclusion or exclusion of a middle initial or a suffix such as "Jr." or "III", or a partial version of their name (such as a person being credited just by their first name instead of their surname). I suspect that some of these people may have misunderstood the option to suppress alternative names.

In the thread at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/a-better-explanation-when-suppressing-alternate-names/66cb59e59364bd32158c3f38 I posted a suggestion to give people a clearer warning about what this option does and what it is for. If you agree with me, please go to that thread and vote for my suggestion.

(edited)

Employee

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4 months ago

Hi @tom_wake,

Thank you for your problem report.

I apologize for the above confusing and incorrect response(s) you've received.

To properly clarify:

IMDbPro members with a claimed name page have access to tools enabling them to self-identify and manage information about themselves and their careers, including the ability to suppress the display of birth names and alternate names.

 

For members who choose not to display their alternate names, the details for productions they worked on will list their professional name with the attribute “as a different name” to reflect that this information differs from the on-screen credits.

 

For more information on this feature, please see our Manage the display of your alternate name(s) Help article.

I would like to reiterate that you were given an incorrect response, and that we would never reach out to a professional and request they alter the control they've selected on their IMDb page via our IMDbPro name management feature. 

This feature is offered to professionals to ensure equal opportunity is afforded to every person who wants to list their credits on IMDb in the way they wish to be represented, having changed their name for whatever reason, without the risk of misrepresentation or discrimination and also maintaining details that denote the person was credited with a different name. 

A reminder that outside of this being the right thing to do in the spirit of the above goals, IMDb is also required to conform to both privacy and equality laws across multiple locations. We must offer this service to anyone who requests it as otherwise that itself could be viewed as discrimination. 

As always, any suspected misuse of this feature can be reported for our teams to review, however IMDb will not display suppressed personal information when officially and accurately requested by professionals.

I hope this helps!