W3 - Topic 2: Online identity and relationships...

In a perfect world, everyone would be honest about who they are, what their intentions are and where they live. But this is not the case and withholding your identity - or parts of it certainly isn't ethically wrong. Given that you can "be anyone" online, your identity doesn't matter all that much beyond personal interest from others. However pretending to be someone else is very wrong, as you could potentially ruin someone's reputation - which could be the intention of some people. One must also be careful of identity fraud when sharing their identity online.

If you are honest about your identity, sharing your full name could be harmful. I have read many stories about people going for job interviews and the potential employer then searching their names on Google or Facebook to see a "true" representation of the applicant. While the internet can allow you to be your "true self", sometimes you may need to adopt a mask for the reasons the above reason. If the wider world linked what you said to your true identity then you could potentially be risking your livelihood which is a risk of online self-expression, although under a false identity there is less comeback on a person's comments. Another risk of online expression is that you can never be sure of who people are or their intentions - you may think you know someone, but they could be completely different in a real-life setting.

When participating in online social interaction, a person may shape their identity and expression to fit in. If someone joined a bulletin board where everyone used coherent English and they used text-speak, they should consider changing the way they type. Similarly, if everyone posted one topic a day while this new user wanted to post twenty, the person should consider cutting their posting of new topics as this could be seen as irritating. When joining a community or interacting with others, people will want to find things they have in common and therefore certain aspects of their personalities may be heightened to different people.

One must also be aware of manipulation. As a digital presence, anyone can use your words in any context. People can take work as their own and reproduce it without credit or use parts of it and give it a different twist which perhaps the original author didn't intend. People can also be "manipulated" when joining communities so that they fit into the community's established ways as the contributor becomes more experienced in the social environment.