Who are we, online?

There are at least two ways to view our identities online. There is the self we choose to present either under our own name or anonymously, and then there is the information we put out there that we can never be sure who has access to. All of the information we “share” comes from us, but it does necessarily represent us in the way it seems to. From the Orwell/Zuckerberg reading, we get the examples of doing research for a murder mystery novel and searching for information on mental health problems for a friend. Elsewhere, we see anonymous accounts created in order to troll. The output from an individual IP address, even when generated from a single individual, does not truly represent any one individual. On the other hand, we have our (somewhat) sanitized profiles on sites like facebook. We may share information more publicly than we mean to, but it still represents a persona we wish to be identified with. Which one of these artificial personas, the one we create ourselves or the one created by some omniscient other, is a better representation of our real, offline, self? The two entities our readings seemed most concerned with are advertisers and governments. Should advertisers be more concerned with how we think and what we are curious about, or how we wish to be seen? Should governments judge us based on online speech, or seemingly incriminating queries? And should either even have access to that kind of information? I don’t have any answers or conclusions here, except that the web has become a very very blurry place.