Secrets and Lies

[andrewducker]

[Poll #363187]

Comments

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Mind you, the publically-accessible work I post is for public consumption anyhow...

And there are people I would... umm, fail to tell that it existed...

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Sure - I think it's pretty obvious who I am, but I don't want just anyone to read it.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

What ^^^brandnewgun^^^ said. I think the question is a little too vague. Obviously, most of my friends list have met me IRL but I wanted to be in a position where a random surfer reading my LJ would not know who I was and would not be presented with enough personal information in my public posts to put 2+2 together.

[avatar.livejournal.com]

I think you might've had to be a little more specific with this question, with some people.

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Sometimes.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

We do have to be increasingly careful about what we write online on blogs or wherever. I have a friend who works in HR for ICI and before offering a job, they now spend a few minutes searching for information about potential employees online.

It's not just a case of typing the name into google and hoping for a hit either, they are becoming increasingly internet savvy. He told me last week how rejected someone because of information they found on Friends Reunited. The person in question had written a profile boasting about how much of a skive his current job was and how little claimed to actually do. It may have been written in jest, but potential new employer didn't find this funny.

[guybles.livejournal.com]

I've pondered on this a few times and never quite made a decision. I'm not too distressed by friends coming across it (and subsequently mocking me, in general). However, there is nothing that directly links my LJ to me en clair, as it were^*.

On balance, if there's anything I would rather not have known, I will just friends-lock it or make it personal. Otherwise, I'm not really saying anything I wouldn't IRL.

^* Eyes link to personal website on info page.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I don't find people who are on my friends list knowing who I 'really am' but I don't want a google search for my given name to end up with lj (or my ancient usenet posts, but that is more difficult to control).

[darkoshi]

In a way, since joining this local bdsm group with the nick 'Darkoshi' and actually using it with them in person too, that is a real-life identity. But I don't want it easily enough connected to my legal identity so that anyone I met in the group could go and look up my address, etc. Nor do I want just any stranger who happens to know my legal name to be able to do a net search and find all my postings.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

What u doing on LJ at lunchtime, huh???

[andrewducker]

8:40am is lunchtime now???

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

I want only those people I choose to know about it. THere's a certain tension in that, as there is in any semi-public conversation.

[moniqueleigh]

Meh, yes & no. Lots of people know me IRL as Moni, but not everybody. One of these days I probably will change my legal name to this, but dunno when.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

I used to try to keep my LJ separate from my real-life identity so that I would feel comfortable making fairly personal, non-friends-only posts, but then I realized I couldn't control the separation so I started making most posts friends-only instead.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

When I first got into this whole LJ thing, one of my RL LJ friends made a comment in her journal thet used my real name, and another LJ friend promptly emailed me all worried that I wouldn't want to be "outed". Quite frankly, I don't care if people know who I really am, and the picture I use is pretty recognizable as me (I think). I go by the basic rule of thumb that I don't post anything publicly that I wouldn't be comfortable having my parents read, and for everything else I use friends-only. And since nothing is 100% secure, I don't post anything that I think would be damaging to myself or others. (Not that I'm much inclined to do so, anyway.)

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I don't access lj from my work (we're not really supposed to anyway and some of the journals I read may raise eyebrows), but I'm also aware that I would never post anything in public which I couldn't explain to my employer. That said, because my lj is linked to my real-life identity (I have my real name and pictures on it), I also wouldn't take chances with anything posted as friends only either. I'd post something controversial if I felt strongly about it, but I wouldn't knowingly post something trivial which could cause me problems.