> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real opti

> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona. Let's substitute some of the bits with variables... "Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exist in the world and X, the only real option is to Y." ...and see how this holds up... X="be rich"; Y="kill your neighbor" Now, you might object "that's absurdly extreme!". True, I have chosen an extreme example, but only because it makes the fallacy conspicuous. Ethical principles don't have loopholes or dispensations. It's not as if big lies are bad because they're big and small lies are okay because they're small. They're both bad because they're both lies. An evil effect of one's actions may be tolerable under specific circumstances, but a means that is inherently evil doesn't cease to be evil because you have no other option to attain the desired good. Ends don't justify means. In this case, a pseudonym is not a lie when a) the intent is not to deceive but to conceal, and b) there is no normative expectation that the name given is real and thus when you do not owe others your real name. On social media, while we know many might conclude that a pseudonym is real, generally speaking, I would say that error is a tolerable side effect (it depends on the particular social medium; LinkedIn is different than Twitter, for example). However, IMO, things start to become more dicey with active fabrication. There is a fine but definite line between lying and mental reservation. There is a difference between speaking ambiguously or evasively on the one hand and lying on the other. This places rather severe limits on what you can licitly say or express. Constructing a persona means you must actively engage in creating a fictional character that you intend people to believe is real as a means of concealing you identity. This is by definition a lie and different from allowing people to falsely infer a persona based on what is ambiguous information that is intended to conceal truths others have no right to. "Create and post a back-story to answer (instead of avoid) the frequently asked questions." The article's author's advice is effectively precisely because it involves lying. Lying works exactly because the default expectation based on the essential function of speech is to communicate the truth.