In this very modern age, our digital footprints are constantly monitored. As scary as it is, we do not want to admit it: people who we don’t even know are watching us. That is terrifying. These ‘people’ range from future employers to criminals. With the growing need to protect our reputation, with the fear of being judged, we resort to creating identities of ourselves on the Internet, which might not be representative of who we actually are. Sometimes, we create personas, where we want a certain group of people to think of us in a certain way. In my blog entry, I would be raising arguments as to why having more than one online identity can be a good and bad idea.
People often argue that having more than one online identity protects reputation. You have a ‘professional-work-friendly’ Facebook page and another page for all the ‘fun stuff that is not so work-friendly’.
As this tutorial has mentioned: http://www.internetsociety.org/online-identity-overview#overlay-context= cookies can be stored and organisations can get a hold of it. So if the ‘professional’ you decided to Google Search what ‘fun’ you would not, you are caught in your lies.
However, with proper management of both accounts, both identities, your aim of maintaining a professional persona of yourself can be achieved without jeopardizing your ‘fun’.
“Individuals are multifaceted. Identity is prismatic,”
Which I agree. It is only natural for us to have many identities in real life, so why not reflect that on our online life? At least we are being honest? Many websites give us different identities as consumers anyway, so why not? I definitely agree to let our online lives reflect who we are. It is highly likely for people to pass judgement; therefore being conservative at least on the Internet is good.
People create false multiple identities. In this article: http://www.wired.com/2014/07/virtual-unreality-the-online-sockpuppets-that-trick-us-all/ here, it was mentioned that someone created an entirely different identity to talk about his opinions. Honestly, it does not affect anyone in a legal sense, but is it really ethical? To voice our your opinions using a different vessel, gaining followers who look up to you only to know that you do not understand what they are going through? I question creating multiple identities again.
In conclusion, I would say having 2 identities is fine as long as you are in control of it. However, the 2 identities should be created for a specific reason that is ethical such as keeping a job, or keeping bank information safe. NOT like what Tom MacMaster did.
Answers and more.. 
Hey Renu!
Reading your interpretation of the quote about individuals being multifaceted really resonated with me. It made me understand that it is also in a way respectful to our professional audience that we are prudent of what we put online and this is made easier when we have a second online identity to manage that.
Considering our future as potential marketers, I believe that regulating between engaging fun and professionalism on our professional accounts is possible and sometimes much preferred for the receiving end. The content we put on there will be relevant and appropriate to them. And all of this can be done with their knowledge that it is not our own personal identity that is communicating with them!
Maybe when we connect with our clients pass the professional stage and develop a better relationship we could then take the next step to want to include them into our private circle of friends. Do you agree that it would be a good thinking forward or not?
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Thank you for the thoughtful post! 🙂
Chloe
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Hey Chloe!!
Thank you for the well crafted comment. It makes sense for us to to integrate fun into our identity online if we are going to be marketers in the future and integrating employers into our personal lives. In this day and age, as society is being more open minded and less formal in that sense, an employer might want ‘fun’ candidates especially as marketers. How do we incorporate fun in our online persona while being confirmative? We as individuals have to manage our online identity again. We have to filter appropriate and inappropriate fun. For example, we can talk about enjoying the nightlife in Singapore on our ‘professional’ Facebook page, while in actual reality; we are drinking too much and partying. Putting it in perspective would help with our professional identity.
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Hi Renu!
I have the same viewpoint as you! That it’s acceptable to have multiple identities as long as it’s ethical without malicious intent. The article (http://www.wired.com/2014/07/virtual-unreality-the-online-sockpuppets-that-trick-us-all/) that you have mentioned, however, wavered my stand a little bit. I still believe it’s acceptable to have multiple identities but is there any way to control so that people (sockpuppets) do not take advantage of it? Is it an anonymity issue and that there is not enough verification procedure?
In the article it stated that Tom MacMaster created “Amina Arraf” simply to voice his strong opinions. There was no apparent harm done except emotionally to people who believed and supported Amina Arraf. I agree that the methods he had used is ethically questionable. He, however, had no ill intentions.
Your post is overall a good read and I totally agree that “It is only natural for us to have many identities in real life, so why not reflect that on our online life?”!
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Hello Mabel,
I think with more technological advancements it would definitely be easy to control sock puppets and yes come to think of it, it is not necessarily a bad thing. There were no ill intentions, but this is in the topic of sock puppets. How about cat fishers? Here, ill intentions can be clearly seen thus more government agencies regulate these. Advanced technologies are used for catfishers, after reading your comment, why not pump in efforts to reduce sock puppets from taking advantage of anonymity as well?
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Hello Renu!!
I just read through your post, and I really like what you wrote! I felt that i was agreeing with what you were saying and that it is something that is really relatable. Just wondering that even though we can combine our identities into one online, and have a mixture of fun and professionalism, what if there are particular things that maybe you thought is fine, but something that a particular employer doesn’t? Like it is just his or her own opinion and that he or she doesn’t like it. Would you resort to having 2 separate identities then? or just manage that identity to cradle to your employers preference?
Anyway good post! Enjoyed the article you put as well 🙂
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