
How Facebook is Killing Your Authenticity - stevedc3
http://stevecheney.posterous.com/how-facebook-is-killing-your-authenticity
======
forkandwait
This shouldn't surprise anybody who has lived in a small town -- when you are
in a fish bowl, you manage how you present yourself differently than when you
are in a big urban anonymous situation. I choose not to live in small towns,
and I choose not have a facebook persona, precisely because I don't want to
have to worry this crap. (I think Facebook has already lost its mojo because
of these issues, but that is another story.)

Regarding "authenticity": please, give me a break about the "real you". The
part inside you that wants to rip off your clothes and tell dirty jokes is no
more "real" than the part, also inside you, that maintains your social
persona. Without sociality -- and the maintenance of personas and ethics --
you don't exist, period. Even the idea of "authenticity" is given to us, a
(rather lame) invention of the 19th Century Romantics, Freud, and the 1960s.

(Edit: Some of the existenstialists would even go so far as to say there is no
"real you", and that the anxiety created by this lack of anchoring is one of
the most important aspects of the human condition.)

~~~
lists
Just to keep things clear and accurate, Freud has nothing to do with an idea
of being an authentic self. I'd have to ask which text of his you have in
mind.

~~~
forkandwait
It is probably too late, but he did have a lot to do with our placing such a
high regard on our inner, immediate emotional life. You are right, he said
nothing (that I know of) about authenticity directly, though I think he was
very much in the "express your feelings" (whatever that means) line of western
thought.

------
edderly
Yep, I saw this interestingly articulated here:
[http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...](http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2010/11/the-
psychology-of-twitterjokes.html)

In essence, the power of Facebook to connect you with your personal friends
also makes you re-make how you present yourself to the outside world.

You create a "purified identity", maybe as you see it a better, less
controversial character for fear of offending, or perhaps more likely to
please your 'friends'.

------
tedunangst
Alternate interpretation: Facebook is making you act like the authentic you
all the time. If you are unwilling to stick to your principles because of what
your friends will think, are they really your principles?

~~~
philk
Maybe I'm not being the _authentic me_ when I don't make dirty jokes to my
Grandmother that I would to my friends but I'd view that more as simple
respect.

~~~
PostOnce
People aren't one dimensional, they behave differently in different contexts.
Facebook takes away that context. People who would normally only see you in
one context (professional, respectful, whatever), may now see you outside of
that context, which forces you to act in a way that is acceptable in any
context.

------
comex
_Don’t believe me? Go to TechCrunch and count the comments on last week’s
posts. Better yet, go read the comments. They suck. They’re sterile and
neutered._

TechCrunch seems to be pretty happy with the result:
[http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook-
comment...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook-comments/)

 _The problem with tying internet-wide identity to a broadcast network like
Facebook is that people don’t want one normalized identity, either in real
life, or virtually._

Is there any evidence this is true outside of geekdom?

 _People yearn to be individuals. They want to be authentic. [...] The nature
of commenting on the web needs to feel organic and fluid, just like it does in
real life._

But real life rarely includes trolls.

I don't like Facebook comments at all, and as long as TechCrunch uses them I
probably won't be commenting, but this article makes too many broad
statements, with too little support, for my taste.

~~~
pyre

      > Is there any evidence this is true outside of geekdom?
    

Are you claiming that geeks are the only people that sequester information
between groups of friends and/or the general public? Are geeks the only people
that may represent themselves one way to one set of people, and another way to
another set of people? This seems to me like it's something inherent in the
human condition. I'm surprised to hear it referred to as a geek-only
attribute...

------
awakeasleep
What _is_ authentic behavior?

If you can say something with one group of friends, but need to change or hide
that to speak to another group, are you being authentic?

~~~
edderly
Don't people talk differently depending on the company they are in? I think
most people will have different levels of trust in their acquaintances, at the
extreme what I might say to my significant other will be different to what I
talk about with a work colleague.

The problem with social media is that it is typically a megaphone to everyone.

~~~
LiveTheDream
Absolutely, and it is completely normal. The Japanese even have this concept
explicitly ingrained in their language - 'Tatemae' (socially acceptable
reality) and 'Honne' (informal, personal reality) [1]. This is essentially the
difference between saying "I'm fine" or "Actually, my dog just died" to a
random person or to your close friend.

[1] <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A571565>

~~~
warrenwilkinson
But is it really so much that you're broadcasting, or are others
eavesdropping. While it would be weird to say that to a stranger, in facebook
your ostensibly informing your friends. That might make difference.

------
btipling
The wonderful thing about real conversations is that they are confined to that
moment in time and to the people you have them with, whether they know you or
not. If you're in a new bar surrounded by people you don't know having an
interesting conversation you can be whoever you want to be for the sake of the
discussion or simply for fun. If proponents of 'open' want to destroy that
they can go suck it. I deleted my Facebook account last year and more often
than not, despite having lost the connection of people of whom I have dear
memories, with every new day I become more convinced that my life is better
without Facebook.

------
cletus
The (very real) prospect of Facebook owning your online identity is
frightening.

I think it's already been well-established that people act differently under
the guise of anonymity. This is both the power and the pain of the Internet.
So it's no surprise that (effectively) anonymous comments have people acting
like jerks.

There are basically two sites on the entire Internet where I will actually
read comments: here and Stackoverflow. Everywhere else (particularly reddit),
it's basically just noise (often hateful, uninformed noise).

The fact that Facebook comments can effectively wipe out much bad behaviour
(possibly taking a lot of good with it; time will tell) makes it highly
attractive to site owners. Even on my lowly, largely desserted personal blog,
I've basically turned comments to moderated because of spam and general noise.

The fact that Facebook owns your identity in this way is a little scary but I
think they'll either come underdone or, in the coming years, the issue will
become so important that governments will intervene (this is, in part, why I
think the upside to Facebook now isn't all that great; there's only so big you
can get).

What Facebook will probably need to combat in coming years is spam int he form
of fake profiles. This will probably take some time for the spammers to create
profiles that are very hard to separate from the real (automatically I mean)
but it will happen (IMHO). What then?

There are already services selling votes on sites like reddit. Why not likes
on Facebook? The problem is harder but certainly not impossible.

~~~
grammaton
How exactly could they "own" your online identity?

If you don't like the service, don't use it.

~~~
cletus
Indeed. Currently you can do that. In my case I simply use Facebook as a
photo-sharing site. That's all the interest I have in it.

Sites that _require_ a Facebook login (as some startups create) get instantly
closed. Sites that _offer_ Facebook login have that option ignored. Sites that
_nag_ you about using that feature (eg tv.com) make me irate.

But comments takes things a step further. What if you get widespread adoption
of Facebook comments to the point that you can't comment on most things
without logging on to Facebook?

At that point it's getting to the point where either Facebook is your online
identity or you have no online identity.

------
joe_the_user
I have no trouble being as about as honest as I'd like to be on Facebook.

Of course, the fact that I don't use my real name or anything connected to my
professional career there makes it easier.

I shudder for those who do use their names - I also harass them on Facebook
for doing so.

Being part of a subculture where anonymity is encouraged helps too.

If anything Facebook encourages me to create a more fake but entertaining me.
But I don't mind saying that - on Facebook.

~~~
yuhong
"I also harass them on Facebook for doing so."

Why?

------
oniTony
so... time to start maintaining multiple facebook accounts?

~~~
mike-cardwell
I have a second account which has no friends which I use for "liking"
companies in order to enter competitions.

------
Swizec
Nobody is forcing you to friend everyone and their cat. Personally I have
exactly 42 friends on facebook. They were chosen carefully to create what I
call the "facebook context". It allows me to act stupid and not care.

Quite liberating.

Alternatively, you could argue that we should, collectively as a society,
realize that humans act differently in different contexts and that _that is
awesome_. I'm fairly certain your grandma realizes you talk dirtier to your
friends than you do to her ... so why can't "real important professional-like"
people understand the same?

------
yason
You have this same problem in "real" life too.

Eventually, you either twist yourself into someone who turns into a different
person each time you see someone you know or stop caring about what other
people think of you and be who you feel like to be.

IMHO, Facebook hasn't got much to do with it except possibly lower the bar to
be yourself. Thanks to Facebook, when you _do have everyone_ on the same board
you can't possibly be everything for everyone anymore: you can either shut
down completely or just resort to only being yourself.

------
alienreborn
2 Simple solutions to this problem.

1\. Create fake FB account if you don't want you real identity associated with
your comments. 2\. Don't bother to comment on sites which asks for fb login.

------
RuadhanMc
The one thing I don't like about using Facebook (or similar sites) for
commenting on sites like TechCrunch is that my Facebook friends couldn't give
two hoots in hades about my "tech world" blabbering. For them it's mostly
irrelevant.

I don't use Facebook as a business networking tool -- I use LinkedIn for that
-- instead I just use it on a purely social level and I don't really want the
two to mix.

Business and social don't need to mix in order for you to be authentic.

------
dbro
What about looking at this from the perspective of the site owner? Facebook
comments can do more for the site owners than the alternate comment systems.
Increased exposure through facebook news feeds should help introduce their
sites to new people.

Just as important is the back-channel that allows comments to be created and
shown in different places (this was mentioned as an "incidental" note in Tech
Crunch's article describing the comments system
[http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/01/facebook-rolls-out-
overhaul...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/01/facebook-rolls-out-overhauled-
comments-system-try-them-now-on-techcrunch/)). I find it particularly
appropriate to bring this up here on HN because I expect Tech Crunch to look
with envy or exasperation when comments are posted HERE (HN) about stories
appearing THERE (TC). Why shouldn't TC want to have all of the relevant,
useful comments appear next to the content they create and host? Facebook
comments could help that happen (indeed, so could have disqus if it were used
by HN and TC both. Alas, disqus, RIP).

------
farlington
Contrary to the author's opinion, I think the facebook comment system almost
forces a synthesis of various online personae into a single facebook
persona—one that's at least based in part on your real-world self. And while
that may often increase self-censorship, it's not at the expense of
authenticity. I would argue that it encourages authenticity.

One interesting thing that facebook commenting seems to have done is connect
people based on mutual interest. Until now, it's primarily been a networking
tool based on a map of real world relationships (with the exception of pages,
and those are most often not community building but vehicles for one-way,
marketing driven communications). It's a pretty radical shift for facebook.

~~~
knowtheory
People aren't single flat unified personas. People have facets to them,
sometimes ones which don't necessarily sit comfortably with each other. You
can be a good straight laced business exec, and be a hard core gamer. Your
business associates might look down on you for that. You have a right to
partition that world off from them, because it's none of their damned business
and has no bearing on your dealings with them.

Having a single point of contact w/o the ability to filter or group your
interactions scoped to people who you feel comfortable communicating with
isn't just lame, it's socially poisonous.

Facebook is doing it wrong.

~~~
farlington
I wasn't suggesting that anyone has 'single, flat, unified persona'; the
concept of persona itself is rooted in a notion of social roles and masks. But
the idea of the 'authentic self' being compromised by blurring social contexts
is what I take issue with—first, for the concept of an 'authentic self', and
second, because the behavior that this encourages is probably more consistent
with what we'd term our 'authentic selves' than the more experimental personae
of internet anonymity.

I think it's still too early to tell whether facebook is doing anything wrong,
but I think they're definitely doing something different and interesting. Not
without precedent—cross-site identity systems are nothing new, oauth and
disqus, et al—but definitely to a degree and with a scope that hasn't been
attempted before.

~~~
knowtheory
Facebook is definitely doing it wrong, but how wrong they're doing it is a
long and complicated discussion.

Apologies if i did not understand your intent in your previous post. That
aside, i dislike the notion that the internet is somehow a separate kind of
space from the other sorts of social interaction we engage in. There are
people who masquerade and are different people IRL just as well as there are
online. There are some differences, the sort of transformation and context
switch necessary to go between identities/facets is different certainly. But
that doesn't change the cognitive/emotional reality.

Besides, who's to say that internet trolls aren't a real part of a lot of
people's identities? (I think this is where we agree) Facebook commenting may
add a component of IRL social decorum, but imo that has less to do with
notions of the self, as just trying not to piss off people who have social
currency in your life.

------
RuadhanMc
In my experience many of the anonymous comments which are mean, snarky,
sarcastic, etc, often have a valid point, but the commenter is too lazy to
articulate that point in a way that does not come off as trolling.

Perhaps they don't have enough time or enough patience to properly explain
themselves, but if that's the case, perhaps leaving no comment is a better
option? It's not as satisfying for the venter, but it's a better experience
for everyone else.

Making commenter's use a tangible "real" identity makes them think twice about
posting lazy rants.

------
getsat
tl;dr: You will probably act differently when not hidden behind the veil of
(optional/partial) anonymity.

> Face it, authenticity goes way down when people know their 700 friends,
> grandma, and 5 ex-girlfriends are tuning in each time they post something on
> the web.

This should probably refer to your "extended social circle" as you can't
actually have 700 friends. See: Dunbar's Number

~~~
feral
That is not the point of the article.

The author specifically writes: "The nature of commenting on the web needs to
feel organic and fluid, just like it does in real life. And even anonymous if
necessary, though that’s not at the core of my argument."

The point of the article is that people present different images of themselves
to different friends. Binding all a person's online discourse to a single
identity forces them to go for the 'lowest common denominator' image.

Regarding your Dunbar's number remark: The author probably meant 'friends' in
the sense of facebook friends, which really includes 'acquaintances'.

Besides which, its not a physical rule that you can't have 700 friends.
Dunbar's number, as applied to humans, is a fairly crude heuristic
extrapolation; its not a hard limit to friendship capacity.

~~~
oniTony
Sure, it's all gradients, but at 700 "friends" we are getting into an average
of "half a day per friend-year" territory. Those don't sound as meaningful
relationships to me.

------
Bvalmont
Facebook actually handles this pretty well, I have different groups of people
and I can cater my status message carefully to each and every one of them.

This problem happens more to me when I'm on twitter however, as I'd like to
tweet about how crazy my weekends were, but my entire network is reading along
so I really couldn't.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I think they handle this part of their system _really_ _poorly_. I'd like to
log into Facebook, and then click "Friends" or "Family" or "Corporate", and
have three completely separate and distinct areas where I can be sure data
wont leak between them. As it stands, the only way I can do that is to set up
multiple Facebook accounts. But maybe I want to stick my brother in both
"Friends" and "Family"...

~~~
gaius
Use the padlock icon on your status to set which list of people can see it.

------
timeuser
I haven't posted a comment on TechCrunch with the new system, but I do see
there is a checkbox for "Post to Facebook." Seems that would solve the problem
of your 700 "friends" being exposed to your comments. Unless the comment still
really does end up on Facebook in some way which I wouldn't be surprised by.

------
tokenadult
What is the problem here?

~~~
pmorici
People generally segment their lives. For example you have your work friends,
your family friends, your hobby friends. For various people these groups may
or may not overlap to varying degrees. Facebook doesn't allow you to segment
your friends like most people do in real life, that has consequences for what
people say and do and not just in the sense of civility. That's what this
article is essentially talking about.

~~~
jarin
Maybe not on comments, but you can definitely segment your friends on Facebook
itself.

If you put your friends into groups, you can click the lock next to the Share
button and customize which people or groups get to see the status update.

It's a pain in the ass, but it's definitely possible.

~~~
dionidium
_If you put your friends into groups..._

This does not seem to be true. When I click the lock and choose "Customize" I
am given a text box in which I can type the names of individual friends, one
by one. Groups don't seem to have much -- anything? -- to do with it.

So, yes, you're right, but I'd revise "it's a pain in the ass" to "it's an
epic pain in the ass."

~~~
solon
It's not obvious, but you can type the names of friend groups into that box as
well.

------
johndlafayette
I disagree, but I think it depends on the person as well. You can use facebook
to do whatever you desire with it. While people try to 'censor' themselves in
many social situations, I think society as a whole is moving towards more
acceptance. Thanks to the internet, you can always find someone else 'out
there' who has the same outlook on life as you. You are also able to see
people from every different background and way of thinking, opening yourself
up to better understanding and acceptance of them. You can be who you are
wherever you are in the world and find acceptance online, even if in your
hometown you may be ostracized. Interesting film concerning this:
<http://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/>

