ANONYMITY VS. PUBLICITY. In the wake of Michelle Malkin‘s irresponsible decision to publicize the names and contact information of two University of California Santa Cruz students, leading to a barrage of hateful calls to them, a new online coalition of bloggers, has created a “Statement of principles” defending “basic decency” online. Spearheaded by Josh Trevino of RedState.com and partially drafted by former Deaniac Aziz Poonwalla, signatories now include Andrew Sullivan, Max Sawicky of MaxSpeak, and TAP’s own Ezra.
Since, as Daily Kos’ Armando once correctly noted, I’m someone with “a bug up her ass about political blogging, specifically anonymous blogging” — a result of the learned suspiciousness that’s common to those who work as reporters, as well as a relic of my experience with a (now) convicted stalker who liked to use false names online — I figured I’d weigh in on these principles. Basically, two cheers, I say. I strongly support bloggers committing themselves to “basic decency” online, and, as I’ve noted previously, I’m all in favor of self-policing and standards. (A 2005 attempt at Daily Kos offshoot ePluribus Media to outline “blogging standards” garnered little attention, but seems worth re-reading along with the new statement. And, for a contrary take, read Chris Bowers‘ hilarious dis, or this mocking parody.) I particularly like how the final version of the statement treats the question of anonymity:
Persons seeking anonymity or pseudonymity online should have their wishes in this regard respected as much as is reasonable. Exceptions include cases of criminal, misleading, or intentionally disruptive behavior.
This statement rightly respects the journalistic need to report on and expose wrongdoing, duplicity, and generally unpleasant behavior under cover of anonymity, and acknowledges up front the way in which anonymity can provide cover for disturbing acts. But it’s also in sync with how journalists are committed to helping sources who want to stay anonymous remain that way. Meanwhile, I think another force is already working to decrease the overall amount of anonymity, and even pseudonymity, online: Publicity, which is the contrary principle of anonymity, and a core principle of contemporary society, as well as a central ingredient in political power. Over time, I suspect that only a small handful of bloggers will choose to retain total anonymity, and then only with very good reasons, while the rest will be slowly seduced by publicity into making themselves, well, public. Note: It’s possible to both use a pseudonym and to be quite public, as Atrios is; pseudonymity and anonymity are the same thing. It’s much harder to be famous if no one at all knows who you are, though, and most bloggers don’t, I suspect, have overwhelming reasons for never disclosing their identities, under any conditions, to anyone, ever, even off the record and while continuing to use a pen name (which is what I mean when I say total anonymity). For example, the pseudonymous georgia10 of Daily Kos recently sat down for an interview with In These Times‘ Christopher Hayes, who wrote a lovely profile of her for The Chicago Reader that plunked her face on the cover of 150,000 papers distributed throughout the city. Author Hayes had been thinking about profiling her for a while, but the controversy over anonymity that I kicked up in March “kicked my butt into gear,” he told me by phone mid-week. Will it make a difference to readers to know that georgia10 is really Georgia Logothetis, a 23-year-old law student at De Paul University in Chicago who lives with her parents, and has dark brown hair and great big eyes? Not hugely — I already knew she was female, just from reading her posts, which contained a certain range of insights and concerns that reflected feminine experience — but it’s interesting, and provides some context for evaluating her political insights and prognostications.
Similarly, emptywheel, who in March wrote a piece on the long literary tradition of pseudonymous writing which rather mischaracterized my own opinions, later outed herself as Marcy Wheeler on the front page of Daily Kos, because she plans to speak at the June Yearly Kos Conference, and you can’t very well speak on a panel with a bag over your head. Plenty of others (scroll down for list) are giving up their anonymity, too, in order to speak on that conference’s panels. And so we learn that Jerome a Paris is J�r�me Guillet ; that bonddad is Hale Stewart; that devilstower is Mark Sumner; and that Kenneth Bernstein is teacherken. True anonymity makes face to face communication impossible, and face to face communication is a critical ingredient in building community over time. I recently had the opportunity to meet the long pseudonymous Echidne of the Snakes, for example, and was intrigued to find that Jaana Goodrich is a petite, silver-haired woman, whose gentle, even meek, demeanor stands in bold contrast to her brash online persona. Echidne outed herself for The Prospect because we asked her to write a column for us and needed her name in order to run it, and, after weighing her commitment to anonymity against the chance to reach a new and larger audience, she opted to reach out to new readers. That move then allowed her to attend a conference on women and media that should would have otherwise eschewed, and that allowed her to meet a whole circle of her fans, and forge new connections with other bloggers. Yearly Kos will, I suspect, do the same thing for many other Kos commenters, who will thereafter retain their pseudonyms, but not their secrecy.
–Garance Franke-Ruta
