Do you use a fake name online? Do you think by using a fake name you are protecting your privacy and hiding who you really are to the world

Do you use a fake name online? Do you think by using a fake name you are protecting your privacy and hiding who you really are to the world? Your fake name does not prevent anyone from knowing the Real You, so why not come forward and use your Real Name online?  Why not own your words and thoughts by attaching them to your Real Being? Why not step forward from the darkness and into the light to place who you are and what you believe directly on the record of life?

Here are the Top Three Excuses I’ve seen for why people hide their identities online:

Have a Stalker.
Oh, really, and you don’t think a dedicated stalker can find you on the web when you reveal every gory detail of your life online? If you’re truly living in fear of being found out, why be on the web at all? Why hide behind a fake name to provide you a false sense of protection?

I Was The Victim of a Violent Crime.
You don’t want your attacker to find you online so you use a fake name and a fake
personality to throw the scent from your trail. What about the others you meet online? Do they know you’re an invented fake? How much truth do you reveal online? Bits and pieces? Nothing? If you lie to someone online to protect your private selfish interest, do you tell them you’re inventing information as you go along or do you merely pretend
it doesn’t matter that you purposefully mislead people?

I Don’t Want People To Know It’s Me.
This is the most common excuse and also the least convincing because its employment
immediately suggests you are not being true to the world or honest with yourself. You do not want to be held accountable for the fires you set and the online brush fires you start.  Or you think by not using your Real Name you can have an online life that is disconnected from public responsibility. You prefer to tear down than build up and you need the anonymity of the online experience to dagger in your
 daring deeds. All of those excuses do not reconcile with reality.

The fact you can be found online through the “anonymous” breadcrumbs you leave behind is startling easy and simple to accomplish. You have an ISP. You have an IP address. You have an email address. All three of those elements can quite simply reveal the when and the what of who you are — so why not just confess from the start who you are and why you are here and there and the everywhere? What is the danger is being who you are online as you are offline? If you use your Real Name online why have you to chosen to take that bold and necessary step? If you still pass a fake name and fake identity online — what does it really get you in the end?

Written by David W. Boles

posted by mkj