Calvin Coates-Phillips
Professor Alene Terzian
English 101
30 October 2015
Online Identity Is What You Make Of It
Whether you realize it or not online media is quickly grabbing hold of society. With
people constantly logging into Facebook, or people constantly uploading thousands of hours worth of content on Youtube and Instagram, our society as a whole is becoming dependent upon the internet. With this we create our identities online. Online Identity is how one portrays themselves on the internet. It can be the truth or a lie depending on how one would like to be viewed by their peers, or by strangers. Ethically, it is wrong for someone to fake their identity but it is a recurring theme on the internet. Our generation has taken the internet and left mark, or as some people would say, they left their digital footprint. In addition, our generation also uses the internet to keep up with distant friends and families. You can even use the internet to make money and become famous.
Firstly, online identity (unlike the normal identity one would have while walking outside)
can be whatever you want it to be. Within the social medias of Facebook and Instagram people can only really go off of the pictures one provides and the things one says. However, these things can easily be lies forged for whatever purpose one might have. This deception could be for approval, anonymity, or an early attempt to steal the information of others, otherwise known as identity theft. Ethically, the people who fake their online identity are wrong, as it is a lie whichever way you slice it. James Parsons talks about this in his article, “Facebook’s War Continues Against Fake Profiles and Bots”. He goes on to say, “If you were to look at a group of 10 recent likes on a news post, chances are that one of those users is fake. Facebook reportedly has around 170 million fake users, and possibly many more that they aren't quite aware of yet.” He goes on to say that these fake profiles are...