Identity on the Internet

I've been reading an entry on Jon Mitchell's blog on ReadWriteWeb. He makes some interesting points about identity. Here is one quote that I thought was really interesting:

We present ourselves differently in different contexts, and that's key to our creativity and self-expression. "It's not 'who you share with,' it's 'who you share as,'" Poole told us. "Identity is prismatic."

He's quoting Chris Poole, an Internet entrepreneur. Chris doesn't present this prismatic nature of identity as a bad thing either. It's just the way things are. Offline, we act differently depending who we are with and where we are. The same applies to life online. We have differently identities and maybe that's okay.

He also cites Facebook and Google as threats to our multiple identities. I had never thought of that. I had always considered Facebook to be one way to create a new identity, to present a new "you" to the world. He talked about how Google Plus (he and Poole aren't really fans of Google Plus) does not tolerate pseudonyms and will delete accounts with fake names. He and Poole seemed to think that our power of creating our own identities is in danger. Maybe it is. 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/4chans_chris_poole_facebook_google_are_doing_it_wr.php