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.

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.

Well, I think a lot of the problems comes from stereotypes. Trying to fit into one of them is not authentic at all, and abusing them like this should be considered harmful.