Not allowing pseudonyms on G+ is obviously a tremendous and awful mistake, and I think most (not all, obviously), of the people here on HN agree with that statement because of the obvious cases that boyd mentions. However, I think that huge mistake is different than "an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people". The latter requires intent, and neither I nor danah boyd can know if this is Google's intent. Indeed, I suspect that Google's intent isn't even known to most of the people working on G+, or even the "upper ups". The marketing people probably want better data for AdSense, and the Engineers are probably viewing the problem from the perspective of simplifying the site's infrastructure, etc. etc... I sincerely doubt that anyone is attempting for some sort of authoritarian power grab.
What they are doing, however, is making a really big mistake.
I don't agree that it is a mistake, and I like that feature very much.
There are some people on Facebook which I know pretty well personally and they are using fake names. That annoys me a lot.
Did you talk to these people? You know them pretty well - and that thing is nagging you. I guess you asked for their reasons to do it?
I guess (uh oh.. I'm obviously clueless about your friends. Talking about likeliness here) most of these are not really in danger, they just choose a name that is wrapped in special chars, written upside down, use 'Will I. Am' or similar constructs, leave out the last name because they are afraid that they are too easy to Google from potential employers or something like that.
Still - I wonder if you tried to find out their reasons for this (maybe some of them have better ones than the samples I listed)?
And - if this is really, really annoying, why don't you defriend/block/remove that person from your FB list? They can continue to use the site as they want, you can continue to use the site without the bad taste in your mouth everytime those names show up.
The bottom line is: You don't like their names, you seem to have it in your hands if you talk them out of it or remove them from your sight. Hoping that a policy for all solves this is just a way of hoping that someone else solves your problems, in my opinion.
Lastly: Facebook requires real names. Yes, they are less active with the enforcement. On the other hand, you see quite a lot of examples that show that these rules are violated. What's the solution?
What they are doing, however, is making a really big mistake.