This is an interesting approach to take. I have taken the opposite approach by using my real name in almost all cases, and my name in unique enough that a google search will directly lead to me.

The benefit of using my real name is how what I say ties into other people that know me through other channels. Someone might read a post I made about a multiprocessor Arduino design, and recognize my name as it related to Subaru stuff. These connections, in the real world, are the primary benefit of social media in the first place.

There is a downside.. if I had something negative to say I have to give it some consideration given the easy linking. I'm not sure that is always a bad thing, but it isn't always a good thing either.

Be weary because what you say may be seem harmless and conventional when you post it, but it could become unacceptable in the future.

Also, think of the things you said 20 years ago, and measure them using today's sensitivity gauge. There is likely something you said long ago that is totally taboo today!

A little off-topic tip, but in case English is your second language, you mean "wary" instead of "weary". For some reason this mistake is getting more and more common:

    weary: feeling or showing tiredness, especially as a result of excessive exertion or lack of sleep.

    wary: feeling or showing caution about possible dangers or problems.

Huh, I learned something new today. For some reason I never registered weary/wary as two different words. I associated both spellings and pronunciations with the same general concept. Kind of like gray/grey. I'm actually a native speaker and your comment is great because now I'm wondering about what other words I'm using incorrectly.

It's not just about you. It's about everybody in your social network. You need to protect all of them and the best way to do that is with anonymity.

The real downside is if you say something that isn't negative, that then gets taken out of context and spun in a way that makes you a target.

It also makes you targetable. If someone or a group of someones decided you needed to be punished they could harass you in the real world, such as by attacking your family or ability to do your job.

My social media identity is completely separate from my "real" online identity like my gaming name I only share with internet friends, and that in turn is completely separate from my meatspace identity.

I have the same approach, and I agree that it helps me reconsider before posting something I would regret.

Regret now or 10 years later when the culture changed?

I would hope that my moral compass doesn't depend on the current culture, so only now.

Current culture probably thinks I'm a terrible person anyway.

It's a delicate balance of not tieing inflammatory statements to your true persona, yet also profiting off of any fame that may arise from your public presence.

For the vast majority of people erring on the side of anonymity is the right choice. You can only go in the other direction once.

Currently, the majority of people seem to vastly overestimate the prospect of fame and act accordingly.

Pseudonyms are ridiculously hard for normal people to keep up and protect sufficiently, even against normal (aka not State) level actors.

The more you write, the more data there is. With enough patterns and idioms - everything from word choice to punctuation to posting times - they can be used to correlate and potentially identify a user.

And realistically, since this isn't a court of law (where there are previously concrete rules in play), they don't need "beyond a reasonable doubt" or even "preponderance of the evidence" but something as simple as "don't these things look the same!?" to fire up a mob to start a campaign to get someone fired or suspended.

At that point, the target has to hope they can either a) prove it's not them or b) the leadership has integrity to hold them to reasonable standards. It's ugly.

That's explicitly against the TOS for most social media platforms, and some (like Facebook) are really cracking down on pseudonym accounts over the last few years.

It's against the ToS for Facebook and LinkedIn, it's perfectly fine on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Tiktok, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest, etc. Definitely not most platforms, just the few that place weight on real identity.

When I was younger, the internet was a tool for discovery and creativity. We used creative names. Today, it is an extension of personality.

It doesn't have to be. There are plenty of (non-troll) Twitter users who use pseudonyms. That can still be an extension of personality, but I'm guessing it's less likely to be the primary focus.

When my daughter started using the internet, my advice was "be a superhero". Don't use your real name, and don't show your face publicly.

I taught her to use a password manager so that she would have a different username for each site, and got here a primary gmail account that was easy to say, but not related to her real name.

Anonymity is an asset.

When I'm dealing with people I actually know - which is nearly all of my social media use - I prefer to use my actual name just as I do when we interact outside of social media. Using as fake name with these people would be bizarre and confusing.

Even if I were to use a pseudonym, I would not pretend it afforded me any guarantee of anonymity anyway.

While I'm clearly not using my real name here, I'm also not hiding it generally. I'd be hard pressed to advocate for hiding as well. I wouldn't say anything with a pseudonym that I wouldn't say with my real name. inb4 "not everyone has that luxury!" Yes, I understand that already. Everyone has to evaluate their own risks, and decide for themselves; thanks... But that's the point I'm attempting explain. If you wont sign your name to it, why are you willing to say it at all? Where's the line between what you believe, and what you're willing to accept responsibility for believing?

Because nobody wants to be punished? Sure it would be awfully noble of me to sacrifice my relationship with half my family to openly support LGBT causes or defunding the police, but I'm not that noble. If I can't do it anonymously I'm not going to do it.

Yeah I was able to get that particular nuance. But the immorality of that is why I can't advocate others do it.

I even mentioned that I have the The luxury of being able to sacrifice my relationship with my family to stand up for what I find to be morally correct. I'm also fortunate enough that I don't have to sacrifice my family relationships to stand on the side of morality. The idea I'm trying to get at is that at some point what's right is more important than what's convenient. And I'd then argue, only children are afraid of being punished for doing what's right.

Why would children be afraid of being punished for doing what's right?

I guess I need to rephrase. It's the mentality of an immature child to elect not to do what they believe they should do, or want to do because of fear of punishment.

You've never had a boss for whom you held your tongue despite knowing they were wrong because the negative consequences of you speaking outweighed the positives? Never had a significant other who was unreasonable about a particular subject and you chose to just go along with them for the good of your relationship? If so I envy you.

No, because what you're describing isn't about hiding an identity from the public. What you're talking about is the ability to speak with tact. I disagree with my boss about a lot of things. I commonly explain why he's wrong or why I'm right. Then in the very rare cases when we still disagree, I do what he asks because he's my boss. If you can't say something you think is true about your work because you fear the repercussions. That's not normal. And a huge red flag.

Ditto for my ex-SO who we've disagreed with about a few things. If you talk to someone with respect, and compassion with the goal of understanding over proving you're right. It's very easy to disagree harmoniously. But again, that's a matter of respect and tact. Not about separating who you appear to be from what you actually believe.

I'm hard pressed to think of a more toxic relationship with someone you'd call your significant other than one where you have to pretend to be or pretend believe something fake just to avoid something that may be uncomfortable. If you're speaking from experience; I don't envy you. That sounds like a horrible way to live your life. Avoiding conversations because of fear of conversations that require tact. If that really is you, you have a lot of learning about how to have conversations to make up for.

Are you aware that people are having their lives ruined for comments they made years ago and in good faith?

Why would a name I chose for myself be worth any less than a name someone else picked?

> Are you aware that people are having their lives ruined for comments they made years ago and in good faith?

Yes.

I'm going to pretend you made the comment I'm assuming you meant to. No that's not ok with me. I'm strongly opposed to taking something someone said out of context and using it as ammo for a different conversation. I'm also strongly opposed to doing anything other than assuming good faith when trying to interpret previous comments. I don't believe the solution to people who act in opposition to those ideal is hiding.

> Why would a name I chose for myself be worth any less than a name someone else picked?

It wouldn't, but that's not the connotation of the OP. The intent was to use a name to hide your real identity. You can choose your real identity, but that's different from hiding behind a pseudonym.

Second rule of social media: never use the same pseudonym twice.