It’s only true that Facebook knows you’re a dog if you’ve actually told them. And even if you told them, they don’t know you’re actually a lying cat.

For everyone, US citizen or not, there’s some other nightmares of legislation. My Facebook account (which is incidentally under yet another false name, in violation of their TOS) could currently be deleted if they work out I’m not who I say I am, but in this future possibility will my online identity also be deleted? How will IDs be verified? What guarantees against someone violating your privacy/security would need to be put in place? What organisations and individuals would have legitimate access to this information? What sort of ownership would they have (see the protests over Facebook trying to claim free use of any content placed on their site)?

I use a false names online because it allows me to manage who does and doesn’t know what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been going. I’d rather not have friends able to discover messages of support I’ve sent to my favourite musicians, because they’d tease me in the pub. I’d prefer people I deal with at work to not be able to google my name and find my profiles. I’d certainly not like potential employers to read my twitter feed. I feel that having a fixed identity online would remove this layer of privacy that I feel is crucial to my full and complete use of and freedom on the internet.