> Note that there's an implicit judgement here that online interactions are fundamentally different from offline ones, which might not necessarily be accurate,

> Note that there's an implicit judgement here that online interactions are fundamentally different from offline ones, which might not necessarily be accurate, but that's been part of Facebook's approach to social networking from day one. I think that what actually happened was that Facebook impressive feat was that is was able to merge the two — and wants to keep representing relations that have depth. I dislike the use of the word “real” for those, but it corresponds to a easy to sort judgement. The fact that we have only one word to split the two: 'pseudonymous' explains the discrepancy mention above you. Yishang Wong made great points about that on Quora a while ago. “Snoop Dog” or “Sister Roma“ are established nom-de-scene, “phreak2345” is a temporary handle.