{"id":914,"date":"2015-03-01T12:52:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T12:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tamaramanton.wordpress.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2015-03-01T12:52:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-01T12:52:45","slug":"topic-2-reflection-on-online-identities-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2008-2015\/2015\/03\/01\/topic-2-reflection-on-online-identities-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Topic 2: Reflection on Online Identities"},"content":{"rendered":"

After reading and reviewing other people’s\u00a0blog posts, it\u2019s clear that what constitutes a separate \u2018online identity\u2019 has a subtly different meaning for different people; some took this to mean that if their Facebook and LinkedIn \u2018persona\u2019 were different then they had multiple identities. I\u2019d taken a different tack, assuming that an identity was only \u2018separate\u2019 when it was fragmented and disconnected (which really can only happen by design).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Both interpretations are valid, but if I\u2019d recognised the different ways the questions was going to be approached then I would have presented a clearer rationale in my original blog.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Given my interpretation of \u2018separate\u2019, my blog expressed my reservations about the darker uses of such separate identities – and although no one challenged me directly \u2013 it is clear that I\u2019ve been slightly\u00a0narrow minded – as Nicole Odofin noted, professional bloggers need a private space to avoid their personal identities getting overwhelmed, while Saber Hamidi makes a similar point regarding TV personalities such as Christopher Poole\u2019s TV interview. It is true that I\u2019d be more interested in establishing different identities if I had a more newsworthy life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That said, I still feel people are too keen to hide rather than exercise common sense \u2013 often expecting the law to provide an alternative to acting responsibly. Hence my question<\/span><\/span>\u00a0to <\/span><\/span>Cheuk Sun<\/a><\/strong>,<\/span><\/span>\u00a0asking whether we are really clear enough about what is right and wrong to be able to legislate. And in similar vein I asked<\/span><\/span> Bartosz Paszcza<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a> if he would be proud or ashamed of developing a tool that could hide your online identity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bartosz Paszcza also made an entry on my blog, challenging why I\u2019m not more concerned about faceless government employees accessing \u2018my\u2019 data. I did have an inward debate when creating the original posting whether to include (and ridicule) such concerns by referencing a YouTube video:\u00a0<\/p>\n