Online Identities have been on the news again.  The most recent has been where the cover blew for the US military when commissioning software to create ‘sock puppets’ or artificial online identities, in order to manipulate social media, increase surveillance, and influence online opinions to further US propaganda.  Some weeks prior to this the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange publicly declared that the Internet was a threat to freedom of speech and could be used by states to throttle dissenting views.  Suddenly, the Orwellian notions of the future are not that far-fetched, where totalitarian states control and watch over everything, including our online identities.

It is why Facebook’s CEO Mark Zukerberg’s idea for radical transparency – where every person has a single authentic online identity – to ever become a reality seems difficult to imagine. It would be nice to know how Zuckerberg intends to solve the scandals and issues associated to identity authentication in the real world i.e. passports and ID cards.  Additionally, Zuckerberg needs to alleviate the concerns of users by coming clean as to where Facebook is headed with privacy and user data.  It is not uncommon for other CEOs to transparently address the public explaining their company’s stance on unpopular and contentious issues.  Zuckerberg needs to act and reciprocate his ‘radical transparency’ to Facebook’s users about where Facebook is headed with regards to personal data and privacy.  Until then Zuckerberg’s assertions demonstrate lack of integrity and seems fraught with ignorance and arrogance, and high profile users will continue abandoning Facebook, whilst people like myself will be quite content in leaving their Facebook profiles lie dormant.