Do you know destroyaliens1?
Or perhaps you are acquainted with devilsevil613?
Deathtoinfidels?
Maybe you have run into myviewrules?
How about youareallidiots?
These are just some of the wonderful folks who anonymously post comments laced with hatred, vitriol, and yes even death threats all across the social web. And they do so with the full and open freedom of our digital age and without the terrible “abuse of power” that those who believe in accountability would demand and impose if they got their Neanderthal way.
Give me a break…
I have long been a foe of the kind of anonymous comments that belittle, insult, present falsehoods, insinuate, and otherwise cause personal, property or business damage.
And yes, I am aware of the important comments being shared by those too timid or afraid to speak out – and I am not being facetious here– but I am as equally aware of those who have been seriously hurt – some fatally as we sadly know – by people who hide behind the freedoms they have.
My issue – to be clear – is not for or against the freedom that should be inherent in our time – it’s about how do we make the Freedom a privilege and not an entitlement.
What got me going was a piece in Techdirt.
It’s a good piece and worth the read – more importantly, it’s a great platform for the discussion.
See what you think…
If you work for a company that has a policy – that you subscribed to and signed – that doesn’t allow you to comment to the media in any way and therefore the only way around this tyranny is pseudo name – does that equate with someone who is afraid of cyber stalkers or of death threats…no doubt from other veiled sources – or with the posts from some authoritarian country where the very act of posting can lead to torture and death?
You tell me – my opinion should be clear.
Seems to me that we have a skewed and sad view of anonymous driven by the nature of our time. Listen:
“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.”
Daniel J. Boorstin
The problem is that in pursuit of their 15mg of fame (thank you Bob Greenberg for that notion) too many want to be “well known” and equate a posting with some kind of celebrity status. They want to be other than they are – someone different – something different – which reminded me of a thought I had read by Wilde…listen:
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry…” Oscar Wilde
And there you have the issue – the desire to be other – not to accept the accountability of being oneself and all that comes with it.
I feel it – there are issues I’d like to comment on that I can’t – for all kinds of reasons – some out of fear of stalking or threats, some out of appropriateness for my job and such, and some because I just plain should not.
Call me shackled if you will – or slave to injustice – I call it accountability – and maybe more…listen:
“Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.” Frank Moore Colby
Truthfully – I am worried about being a bore but then again no one has to read this if they don’t want – and more – I am triply cognizant of participating in any forum if I don’t think I have something to add.
The good news is that the bores are easy to spot if we identify ourselves…it’s the dangerous folks I’m really worried about and remember:
“Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream.” W. S. Gilbert
So let’s give all identified skim milk the forum – by all means – but find a way to know the cream if we can’t…
What do you think?
it is sooooo true!
i’v wrote about it a few times in our blog (yr tel aviv)
but most people thought i dont understant the ruls of our times
im so happy that someone like you, who comes from the digital and speaks the longuige
thinks the same
i belive the web is the real land of the brave
if you have strong words, and you signe it with your real name
only than
you can make a real diferent
but if yoursalfe cant stand behind your ideas
in fool name
than nobody will!
amit gal (the real one)
Anonymous posting on the web is an interesting topic. In one sense, truly anonymous posting doesn’t really exist. In another, anonymous posts can be used as a veil from which some attack and through which others hide.
From the perspective of the reader, anonymous posts allow a person access to comments without having any preconception regarding the poster. They have no choice but to take the message on its own merit without the cleverly made up handles some of us have chosen to use as our labels, our personal brand that offer the reader clues as to how we’ve come up with the 2 cents we put into the post.
When “Ih8kittens” posts about how cats have got to go we learn nothing, we already know where that poster is coming from. When anonymous say’s cats have got to go, one might wonder, and ask why. At that point maybe we’ve got a discussion and that, I hope, is the point, to generate discussion.
Posting under a consistent name makes it easier for people who like reading your comments to find more of the same. On the flip side it also makes it easier for various factions to put together a nice little “opinion” of you that tells them who you may or may not be.
Either way, I’m of the opinion that the cream is in the quality of the comment as it pertains to the story being commented upon, not the name or label applied to it by the poster be it Joe Schmoe or John Doe.
An interesting subject that was discussed a lot earlier this year on a Danish ad news site. Here people would post anonymously to provide negative comments on campaigns and agencies (especially their leaders). Although I can understand why some people might post under a pseudonym in fear of losing a future job or fear getting their own name in the negativity machine, I personally still have much more respect for people who have the guts to stand by their opinion. Even though some people might feel it’s their duty to warn others against certain agencies/people, what good does it do, if the recipient of the critique cannot reply because it’s impossible to know why the critique is coming from?
On a slighty different note, yet still relevant, here is a post on “real name” policies in social media:
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zephoria%2Fthoughts+%28apophenia%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
“Certainly not always, but often anonymity, bad manners and outright abuse unfortunately are highly correlated. If you must post anonymously… say what you would say face to face to a person.” – Timo Salmi
This resumes pretty well what I feel.
I like to know who I’m speaking to, be it face to face or on the net. I understand what Joe’s saying, but I think knowing where the person we’re talking to comes from gives us a better insight into their opinion. Then, it’s up to us to detect the bias in the views expressed.
Anonymity on the web has positive aspects too. Why not have some privacy for a change? My reason for this belief has to do with what I found when I Googled myself. Try it. Google yourself. You may be surprised, perhaps dismayed, or delighted that you will find, along with your accomplishments, that you’re entire history of where you live, lived, married, divorced, your age, date of birth, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles names, where they live, their ages, and so on is on the web clear for anyone to see. The companies or sites who post this information have more rights to your information than you do. Once any information about YOU is public, i.e. marriage, rental agreement or jury duty, that information is up for grabs and you can’t do very much to stop it. I called one of these companies and they said I had to give them even more information to prove I was “me”and then they would take down the information on their site, but that is only one site. You’d have to hunt down a multitude of sites in order to get back your privacy. So, I vote for a little privacy in posting, and a lot of decorum. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it. Oh, and don’t ask me my age or weight, my name is enough.
So there is anonymity — as in no name or handle and then there is the “fame” that a web-name gives you without revealing yoru true identity. In the hands of the Forces for goos all good — but cross over to the dark side and……..
Can’t add anything, except some compliments. Loved the article, but as an Art Director, even more impressed with your ability to comunicate so succinctly Mr. Sable. Also loved Joette’s response (not that my weight or age has anything to do with my connection to her article). Damn, thought this would be anonymous, but the machine posted my name automatically
First of all, It’s kind of interesting that this blog requires a name and e-mail to post a comment, though I guess a pseudonym would work? maybe?
The Techdirt piece was quite interesting but a bit scary at least to me. Just looking at some of the reasons not to require names;
(Kirrily “Skud” Robert has started putting together a list of reasons why people prefer to use pseudonyms — and there are numerous legitimate reasons that go way, way beyond “I want to be a jackass online.”)
“I am a high school teacher, privacy is of the utmost importance.”
Tell me that this reason doesn’t scare you?
“I publish under my nom de plume, it’s printed on my business cards, and all of the thousands of people I know through my social networks know me by my online name.”
I guess he branded the wrong name, what ever!
“I have used this name/account in a work context, my entire family know this name and my friends know this name. It enables me to participate online without being subject to harassment that at one point in time lead to my employer having to change their number so that calls could get through.”
Some times there is a price for being controversial, removing the price does not make it right or wrong. I’m not sure I even agree with the term “free speech”, words are not free or even cheap, they are powerful and can create and even destroy things, they can change reality and can certainly empower both people and even inanimate objects. I don’t feel the need to allow the use of such power without the responsibility that being anonymous simply removes.
“I do not feel safe using my real name online as I have had people track me down from my online presence and had coworkers invade my private life.”
I’m not sure I feel safe with what this person has to say that they feel so unsafe using their real name…
I will stop now as I’m starting to sound to McCarthey’ish even for myself… ;^)
I guess you will want to get a twitter button to your blog. I just bookmarked this url, although I had to make it manually. Just my advice.
My blog:
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I think you would enjoy this clip from The Daily Show regarding the topic of anonymous posting.
http://allthingsd.com/20110728/jon-stewart-points-out-the-downside-of-tvs-twitter-love/