TIME recently named Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, their Person of the Year for 2010. It is an interesting article, perhaps a little more on the worshipful side than I would have expected from TIME, but Zuckerberg, like Gutenberg, has succeeded in completely changing the way the world communicates with each other — and in less time. It is awe-inspiring. TIME made an apt choice.
However, there was one thing that Zuckerberg said, then echoed by Google’s CEO, that I simply do not agree with in the slightest:
“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,” Zuckerberg said in a 2009 interview with David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. This is a popular attitude among the Silicon Valley elite, summed up by a remark Google CEO Eric Schmidt made last year on CNBC: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Well, no. There are at least two reasons that this is a limited and disparaging view.
First of all, this stance does not take into consideration people whose choice of work means that they have fans. People who have two personas regardless of Facebook, such as creative professionals working/publishing/performing under a professional name not their own. Or even someone performing under their own name, but leading both a public and a private life, like an author, or an actor, or a musician. Why shouldn’t these people be able to enjoy the benefits of Facebook networking, too? How does it display a lack of integrity to separate the photos of your kids from what you share with your fans?
The Zuckerberg-Schmidt reading of this situation completely ignores this sector of the arts: people with fan bases who have elected to put part of themselves out there, but value their home life as well. More to the point: who value their kids’ space and well-being. Imagine if Angelina Jolie wanted to be on Facebook. I mean, I am sure she has friends. But how could she post photos of her kids the way I post photos of mine? She couldn’t.
Between me and Angelina live a lot of authors — people I work with every day. They fiercely guard their privacy, and that includes the well-being of their kids.
Secondly, and overlappingly, there is that whole work vs life level of information. It isn’t that I shouldn’t be posting that photo of me as a high school cheerleader on Facebook to share. I mean, why not? How fun. Me and my forever-girlfriends whooping it up at age 16… But professionally that is both an inappropriate element into the conversation and a distraction. Is not wishing to share my Rah-Rah self with people with whom I discuss strategy and industry a display of integrity-less me? I sincerely hope not. I also strive to keep my politics out of my professional identity. I work with a lot of clients and some of them don’t support the same candidates I do. And yet on Facebook I want to be able to say “Right on!” when something happens I support. But I wouldn’t do that in my professional world.
I have two blogs: this one and my I’m-a-Mommy one. The audience overlaps about as far as DNA does. There is nothing on either blog that I shouldn’t be doing or saying, Mr. Schmidt, but it would be inappropriate to merge them into one presentation. Not only inappropriate, but it would show a lack of understanding audience.
Having two identities does not necessarily mean you are baseless or guilty of something. It means you have a separation in your life between work and home. Maybe that’s privacy. For a man whose life work is based on sharing everything, I can see how you might not share the same view of privacy as I do, but to call the rest of us dishonorable misses the mark, Mark.
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Have you read this article about the digital detritus we leave behind when we die?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09Immortality-t.html?pagewanted=4&%2359&_r=2&%2359;pagewanted=all&ref=magazine
I completely agree with you as a person with two blogs that each have a very distinct voice (although both obviously mine). And the above article, I think, only compounds your point. I AM all the things I say digitally, but like my thoughts, I wouldn’t want everyone to be engaged it all simultaneously. Just as I wouldn’t say the same things and crack the same jokes to my boyfriend as I would to my mother. I wouldn’t be embarassed for her to hear them, they simply aren’t the same audience…
Thanks for the back-up, Rebecca, and for the informative link. I think you perfectly summed the issue up with this: “I wouldn’t want everyone to be engaged it all simultaneously.” Indeed.
I agree with you, Emily. Using a pen name doesn’t mean I’m presenting a false image of myself. It would be exhausting to try to be someone I’m not, no matter what name I use. But the pen name does give authors a little privacy. If you use your real name, each time you sign a book, you’re giving someone your legal signature.
Yes, and thanks for the comment!
And either way, if you don’t use a pen name or not, it is wrong to demonize wanting to have two personas: a professional vs personal. It’s just not right to say, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place” as a blanket statement because there are levels of consideration.