The Outing of a Blogger: Social Transparency or Violation?

[BlueJessamine]

The Outing of a Blogger: Social Transparency or Violation?

by Lorelle VanFossen

The Blog Herald

So is it okay to be anonymous any more?

We live in an age of transparency. I’d say that “transparency” should have been the word of the year last year, and it’s popularity as a buzz word this year continues. It pops up in most news reports, demanding transparency from banks and financial institutions, politicians, governments, corporations, and individuals.

It also litters our social media interaction. We want our online social interchanges to be with real people who want to know us as real people. We want people leaving comments on our blogs to have names. We want folks on Twitter to have real names, not CD Handles and cute nicknames or keywords. So is it okay to be anonymous any more?

Over the years, there as been an ongoing debate about anonymous bloggers as more and more people take to the Information Highway to have their say. For some, anonymity is a matter of life or death. For others, it’s just wiser. But it isn’t for everyone.

Some use a pseudonym, similar to what writers and artists have been doing for many years, either for protection and security, or because their real name, Hildibob Slibbervitzenson, just isn’t “writerly” or “artistic.” Would women have swooned over Archie Leach? Sang the memorable songs of Barry Alan Pinkus, or sang along to Bohemian Rhapsody with Farrokh Bulsara? Or believed in the sung words of Robert Allen Zimmerman with such fervor? Would Moses have been so memorable if played by John Charles Carter? Would the sexy pottery scene in “Ghost” have been so memorable if performed by Demetria Gene Guynes? Replaces those real names with their pseudonyms of Cary Grant, Barry Manilow, Freddy Mercury, Bob Dylan, Charlton Heston, and Demi Moore and everything changes.

There are many people who blog under a pseudonym without condemnation, but there are still those who choose to publicly blog anonymously. They use CD Handle style names, making a visible statement about their need to be private and choosing to hide behind a masked name while not hiding their opinion.

And there continues to be a witch hunt on to out them when their opinion doesn’t agree with the government or politicians.

Politician Outs Alaskan Blogger

Such is the case for Mudflats or AKMuckraker, an opinionated blogger in Alaska being threatened by an Alaska state representative with “outing” their identity.

Author and state representative Mike Doogan is the author of several books about Alaska and mystery novels, and states in his bio that he worked most of his life as a journalist and writer. Of all people, he should know more than most about protecting the rights of authors and writers. It seems he doesn’t.

http://www.blogherald.com/2009/03/28/the-outing-of-a-blogger-social-transparency-or-violation/

The outing didn’t escape the notice of the Huffington Post, reporting:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/famed-anonymous-anti-pali_b_180313.html

Doogan has been quick to make hyperbolic comparisons between the anonymity of AKM and the anonymity of the KKK, drawing not-so-subtle historical parallels between the anonymous post-Civil War editorials of the KKK’s original Grand Cyclops. He has also mentioned “hoods and torches” in several emailed responses to constituents who voiced concerns about the ‘outing’ of AKM.

No doubt Doogan feels vindicated by outing this anonymous blogger — someone associated with a media form that is taking the jobs of his colleagues, someone whose work is lesser in his mind than the print journalists of yore. Doogan says that AKM gave up her right to anonymity when her blog began influencing public policy, but America also has a rich tradition of anonymous political commentary — so much so that the framework of our country was shaped by anonymous political prose.

….Doogan would do well to remember that, although he is a mystery novel writer, he is not a detective in real life, and this was one mystery that should have gone unsolved. New media is replacing traditional media regardless of whether Mudflats continues to exist or not. Taking down one blogger — or even thousands of bloggers — will not bring back your dying newspaper industry.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. As someone who "hides" behind a pseudonym. . .

I offer some instances in which "tranparency" might not be such a good thing.

The safety of a whistleblower. Is it their identity or their information that matters? Remember "Deep Throat"?

Any witness protection plan. Sometimes for their own safety people need anonymity/identity change.

The ballot box. The secret ballot is one of the most sacred rights of the American system.

Confidential records: We all have them, from medical history to school records to employment review reports.

The point I'm making is that we already have many areas of our daily life that involve anonymity or even secrecy. and we've survived thus far with that.

Seems to me this guy is on a personal vendetta and he should just chill.



Maybe I am, but I'm probably not



Tansy Gold

[BlueJessamine]

2. Thankyou Tansy, you bring up some great examples

for the use of pseudonyms.:hi:

And while it does appear that Alaska Representative Mike Doogan has a a personal vendetta against Mudflats blogger "Alaska Muckraker" (AKM), there seems to be more to this story.

Are more bloggers being targeted out of retaliation?

From the comments in Dawn's Huffpo article:

Jean AK writes:

We're looking at something even bigger here in Alaska. There's an effort to silence people here who have things to say. In the past week Andree McLeod and Celtic Diva have been targeted, and Fox News has shown up in Anchorage to check up on these rogue bloggers. Protect them, people! They are our voice!

There's something called the 'chilling effect.' Keep telling 'em they're doing wrong, keep at their heels, keep deriding them, use your power to put out repeated press releases and eventually they'll give up. That's what's being done to Alaska bloggers right now. And it's just simply darn wrong.



JJEagleHawk's has more at the Daily kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/28/714126/-Response-to-Rep.-Mike-Doogan



And there is the Bill O'Reilly show who ambushed Amanda Terkel of Think Progress this past week to:

http://thinkprogress.org/

[BlueJessamine]

4. (oops , ..moved to reply in general.)

[msongs]

3. that blog is selling merchandise = running a business = public record

when you "mudflats" sells stuff in its name and on its website/blog it's conducting a business, which means various registrations for tax purposes. those are a matter of public record and information contained theirein (name etc) can be revealed. There is no right to privacy in that case.

somebody using that information to be a jerk may be a different matter however.

Msongs

[BlueJessamine]

5. From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Canada seems to think differently

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/25/1758235

[mbperrin]

6. Anonymity was used by the Founding Fathers for the same reasons

as it is used now:

1. IDEAS, not the person behind them, become the main focus of the discussion. Helps stay off the ad hominem drug - "oh, what does he know, he's just a small businessperson," or "oh, we gotta listen to her, she's rich!"

2. SAFETY, because then, just as now, those not in line with the idea du jour can be threatened with their personal safety, their jobs, their incomes. Later, when their ideas are mainstream, everyone falls all over themselves with "oh what a shame old so and so didn't live to see this day. Never could understand why he killed himself."

3. EQUIVALENT stature in the debate - even when ad hominem arguments are not used, certain folk may benefit from a "halo" effect. Anonymity helps reduce that.

Here's a list of those anonymous guys with something to hide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pseudonyms_used_in_the_American_constitutional_debates
List of pseudonyms used in the American constitutional debates



Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, by Howard Chandler Christy. Many of the men in this room published letters and essays under pseudonyms.


During the debates over the design and ratification of the United States Constitution, in 1787 and 1788, a large number of writers in the popular press used pseudonyms. This list shows some of the more important identities and the probable real authors (where known); question marks indicates attributions that should be regarded with greater caution and skepticism.

[Doctor_J]

8. Republicans are terrorists

they should be arrested for stalking and/or trespassing, or terrorism if they threaten peoples' safety or livelihood.