I bit the bullet and am now on Facebook. But it’s thrown up an interesting dilemma.

There’s a huge down side to homogenising or (maybe more accurately making a smoothie) out of our identities (Facebook, LinkedIn, other virtual public spaces like this one).

I don’t want potential clients reading something offensive here and thinking I’m a crazed out-to-get-you madwoman.

If everything’s now linked and unified (I have been made one; I am whole again) then I have to be a lot more careful. Don’t I?

I can’t now have multiple identities. Not that easily. The desire to seek out new business means I have to behave myself, refrain from saying things (in print), hold my tongue.

Yet in our daily lives we are uncensored (mostly).

The term PC hasn’t eradicated anyone’s prejudice; it’s just stopped them talking freely to certain people.

So why is it such a modern-day focus? To stop bullying, exclusion, sidelining? To stop minority groups and the downtrodden from being targeted? To prevent incitement? Of just to stop offence?

As a girl, I was on the receiving end of racial insults from the commonest of schoolgirls, Judith, daughter of local pub landlord. (Am I even allowed to say ‘common’?)

E. Welthorpe corrected me when I used the world ‘class’ here. No one’s fat or thick or ugly these days. Yet the new words, though gentler, still describe the same qualities or physical attributes.

Does standardising our online identities mean cyberspace is going to be ruled by bland, sexless, raceless, classless, non-opinion? If we’re not sometimes offensive, can there ever be anything creative?

I can criticise the English for their reserve (how much nicer than frigid that sounds), but I can’t make generalisations about immigrant Indians who might have excluded my daughter from their clique? For example. Why is that?

And when someone moves what we perceive to be the middle ground – the thinking of the rational, tolerant citizen – can we make a fuss?

Now it’s been suggested, won’t I sound like a homophobic zealot if I say I’m not sure I agree with gay marriages?

But back to my point. I’m now more afraid than ever to publish anything I truly feel. So I can ‘like’ and ‘follow’ people and organisations. Sometimes I want more than that – I want to adore at least two so far! But even that is significant: liking is enough! I can only say nice things about people and establishments.

If some faceless Facebook employee doesn’t like what I’ve said, I’ll be removed, annihilated. And who are these new anonymous judges? We don’t know. No accountability, no identity, just a lot of power.

So I’ve been on about a month and loathe it already. For the way it might censor content and the way I have to gag myself when posting.

And it wants to link my Facebook ID with all other zones I contribute to - no thanks!

Again, this could be me not understanding how it all works - I’m willing to concede that. Or perceiving that what I post matters to my business. Maybe no one gives a damn. Still, as in the finest of examples where fear rules a society, I don’t want to risk it

And on the subject of risk … can you believe that my car insurer want to hike up the premium £13 because I’m now a writer and not part time estate agent?

Writing’s risky, sure, but is it more dangerous than accompanying strangers to empty houses in sometimes isolated rural areas? Someone seems to think so.

Glad I’m not a nail technician – my premium would got through the roof.

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