Donovan Green
Professor Wachanga
New Communication Technologies
Facebook’s or America’s Identity Problem?
Public apologies from companies are often necessary in order to “save face” in a controversy and retain as many consumers as possible. However we’ve seen that in Facebook’s recent identity crisis that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been reluctant to take the blame, even with it being such a sensitive topic that involves a counterculture group in the drag community. Facebook asserts that the real name requirement in the creation of its accounts are to reduce spam, catfishing, and harassment which is a understandable argument in today’s era where catfishing is rampant. The problem mainly lies with drag performers who would like to have multiple Facebook accounts in order to separate their professional life from their private life. This in itself also hints at a larger problem that society has been trying to grasp which is their individual representation on social media sites. Yes, people have the right to share what they want on social media, however, does this justify users creating a profile that is not fully them? Oftentimes people view social media as a chance to advertise the life that they wish they lived or to disguise their actual true self and lifestyle. Leaving out minor details from your personal account is reasonable; who really shares everything about themselves anyways, but having a completely other account with a different name, personality, etc is borderline catfishing in a sense. Before America looks at Facebook with problems we should look in the mirror and examine the problems of our own.