It's been said that Facebook conquered social networking and the Internet in part because it eliminated anonymity - real pictures connected to real email addresses instead of made up screen names and wacky cartoon images. The theory is that real personas add a sense of credibility, safety, and a much greater opportunity for advertisers/content developers to understand their audience.
But it seems that this openness might have also created a Big Brother-like side effect. Today I read that 8% of U.S. companies have fired social media miscreants. This is probably just the beginning. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Anonymity used to be the main counter-force to the expanded monitoring power enabled by the Internet. Are we now coming to a place where parts of the digital identity have become a liability?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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