SOCIAL COMPUTING PERSONAS FOR PROTECTING IDENTITY IN ONLINE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

A system and method for generating a plurality of personas for an account of a user is disclosed. The present invention uses an account engine to receive information for the plurality of personas and to associate the information for the plurality of personas to the account. The information for each of the plurality of personas includes a visibility level. A persona engine receives a selection from the user and transmits the selected persona to the user based on the selection. An authority engine determines an appearance of the selected persona based on the visibility level.