Some More Thoughts On Blogging And Anonymity
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in BloggingI wrote an editorial about the Publius situation yesterday and the conversation since has been great. Lots of opposing opinions, and here are a few.
First, Tully argues that anonymity doesn’t hurt the credibility of blogging…
Can you possibly set the bar any LOWER, Justin? Journalists have spent much of the last couple of decades proving that they deserve ZERO inherent respect for being journalists qua journalists, ably demonstrating that to much of the field objectivity had become little better than a mask to hide their blatant non-objectivity behind. This is just another form of the logical fallacy of the “argument from authority.â€Sorry, but in general arguments stand or fall on their own, not on the basis of who utters them. The recent history of “mainstream†journalism argues that as strongly as anything can. It mattered not one whit in RatherGate if Charles Johnson was named or anonymous; the “blinking memo†evidence he produced in moments stood on its own and could be reproduced and verified by anyone, and any impartial examination of Rather’s “evidence†showed that it was clearly quite suspect, that his stauts as a “journalist†had been used to lend it MUCH more weight than it deserved.
As others have pointed out, even the Founding Fathers recognized the principle of avoiding the fallacious argument from authority in a battle-of-opinion, and publicly debated the merits of governmental and political issues in anonymous/pseudonymous form precisely to (a) get away from the cheerleading and cult-of-personality issue and let their arguments stand or fall on their own, and (b) to put a buffer between themselves and those who would punish them simply for offering said arguments at all.
The question resolves to (at least) two distinct issues: the argument from authority (and the transparency argument is mostly a subset of that) and the idea that because the internet is NOT truly anonymous, that therefore anonymity/pseudonymity has no place in it. The first is self-demonstrably fallacious logic. The second is the same logic that, say, Operation Rescue has employed in publicly disseminating the home addresses and license plate numbers of clinic personnel and patients. It may be technically legal, but that doesn’t make it right. That anonymity/psuedonymity can be breached is not an argument against using anonymity/psuedonymity, only an argument against relying on it as an absolute.
In any case Whelan’s outing of publius (and publius’s personal baiting of Whelan) was irrelevant to the substantive arguments of either, and boils down to a conflict of personalities and a race to the bottom regarding who could best demonstrate that they could be the bigger jerk. (Obviously, Whelan “won†that heat.)
Then, John Burke sums up why remaining anonymous/pseudononymous isn’t a good call…
- Bloggers certainly have the right to use a pseudonym, but anyone who blogs anonymously should not cry about being outed at some point. If you stand to lose your job over what you’ve blogged, a prudent person would not blog. In Blevins case, he became influential enough as Publius to annoy another influential blogger who outed him. It’s also possible to be found out by your boss in a dozen other ways, even if your blogging is “a hobby.â€
- It’s a hobby for almost everyone, in fact. Not much money here.
- Citing Hamilton, Madison and Jay gets you nowhere. A better analogy if you’re comparing us to the early days of the nation would be to the commonplace use of pseudonyms then to print malicious lies about one’s political rivals.
- While there are plenty of pseudonymous bloggers who are very nice and plenty of named bloggers who are very nasty, it’s hard not to believe that anonymnity fosters incivility, and over time, on balance, anonymous publishing coursens political discourse.
- Think of it this way: if every Sunday, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal printed just one anonymous op-ed that slammed and slandered your favorite politician, would you think as highly of either paper as you do now?
- If not, then why should we not respect bloggers more when they put their names to their opinions? Not that we can force anyone to do anything, but we don’t have to take them as seriously, do we? And we don’t have to commiserate with them when a political rival outs them.
As stated in my previous post, I fall on Burke’s side and I sum it up as such…
The weight of the argument is hurt by the anonymous/pseudonymous nature of the author b/c the opposing viewpoint can take to other channels of communication and/or the argument will have to be taken up by people who can champion it via those channels, thus diluting the message.Also, regardless of how you feel about the media, they’re out there everyday doing their thing and pushing everybody else to be transparent. So if you think bloggers can do the same thing behind an identity curtain, I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. There’s less credibility in posting anonymously simply because of the mechanics of the media. Perhaps that will change in the future, but I don’t see how.
Last, let’s remember what the whole point of the post was. If you don’t want to get revealed, you may not want to blog. That’s what it all boils down to. The credibility issue was an aside. An important one, yes, but still an aside. Nobody was forcing Publius to write. Still, he felt compelled to. That’s fine. But there are consequences to that, especially since there’s a good likelihood that he lied to his employer and family members. So, is that really worth it? I don’t think so. After all, we live in the US and it’s not like he couldn’t find another job or agree to disagree with his family.
But don’t let us have all the fun.
What say you?
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June 8th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I think that a couple of the transparency arguments have a false supposition that journalists are striving for neutral transparent facts. Rather, most seem to strive for presenting their own “tint” on the glass of transparency. Secondly, we live in an information society. If someone questions the facts around a blogger’s post, there are literally hundreds of venues by which to compare, contrast, and accumulate a body of facts and opinions by which to help inform one’s own opinion. So claiming that pseudonyms are bad because they foster lies is relatively weak. The truth, as they would say, is out there, and much more readily accessible than in the days of Madison and Jay.
Having said that, I find it hard to believe that someone would harbor such passionate view that are so diametrically opposed to how they earn their living as to *require* anonymity. I would think that the work experience would be nearly intolerable. And if someone gets fired for a political view, well, I think that would be a very interesting court case to follow.
So, in the final analysis, I think that if you’re seeking credibility then a pseudonym is of limited use. If it makes life a little easier and you’re willing to live in obscurity, use a funky handle.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Justin,
I read through the comments on the last post but didnt see a response to the central assertion i made. Namely that the cost in losing the good work done by pseudonymous bloggers will outweigh the benefit pushing them off the Internet. With the anonymity you have the ability to get the insight and benefit of people who would normally not do it. Why isnt that side of the calculation taken into account? You seem to be inordinately focused on the random anonymous hit piece, which i believe is actually rather rare. Especially considered that to have any impact at all the hit piece has to come from a high traffic yet anonymous site which, in the event the piece constituted libel would be subject to service of process and the destruction of anonymity.
I side with tully and his focus on the failure of relying on the idea that a name provides authority. you have one example in your post
Think of it this way: if every Sunday, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal printed just one anonymous op-ed that slammed and slandered your favorite politician, would you think as highly of either paper as you do now?
If not, then why should we not respect bloggers more when they put their names to their opinions? Not that we can force anyone to do anything, but we don’t have to take them as seriously, do we? And we don’t have to commiserate with them when a political rival outs them.”
the problem here is that your not linking the fact that they dont put a name next to the piece with my loss of respect. I lose respect because the paper prints trash whether there is a name associated with it or not. Im not going to be excited because today the paper is printing trash by DeLay or Pelosi. I just dont think the name is what is important, a crappy argument by president obama isnt accorded more respect simply because it comes from him. If it cant stand without the name shouldnt we question the value of the contribution?
The idea that peoples names instead of their ideas are what is important plays a big role in the general crappyness of the media. Why is Newt Gingrich on TV everyday? He has a name. He is a “serious person”. In reality he is a failed lawmaker from over a decade ago who isnt relevant to the future. If he had a pseudonymous blog would his ideas be taken seriously? i doubt it.
the last paragraph seems wrong in many ways,
The weight of the argument is hurt by the anonymous/pseudonymous nature of the author b/c the opposing viewpoint can take to other channels of communication and/or the argument will have to be taken up by people who can champion it via those channels, thus diluting the message.
does it really? Many things have come from the blogosphere and make it into the general discourse. Once its in the tm it doesnt particularly matter where it originated as long as its substantiated it some way. Strong messages have to be carried by many people not just the originating source. Think of campaigns, the sheer number of people goign everywhere they can to carry the message. it didnt come from them but they are perfectly capable of defending the idea and the intellectual framework behind it. Messages become diluted when people cant adequately explain or defend them not because the original source isnt out there to do it.
Also, regardless of how you feel about the media, they’re out there everyday doing their thing and pushing everybody else to be transparent. So if you think bloggers can do the same thing behind an identity curtain, I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. There’s less credibility in posting anonymously simply because of the mechanics of the media. Perhaps that will change in the future, but I don’t see how.
Are they really pushing for everyone else to be transparent? Is there now a general rule against anonymous sources? I dont here about the multitude of conflicts of interest that people in the media have. remember that whole military analysts employed by the dod thing? How did knowing their names and the media’s supposed push for transparency work out while they were selling the war?
In the last post i asked you about the removal of anonymous sourcing or all anonymity of the Internet. I was not trying to say that you hold these positions or even like them in the least. my point was to say that the arguments in favor of outing bloggers work in those cases as well and that there isnt really a good line to draw between supporting the outing of bloggers and supporting the end of anonymity on the net generally. Credibility for all, accountability for all.
Again as a matter of policy, why is supporting the outing of anonymous bloggers thereby suppressing speech and ideas superior to supporting pseudonymous blogging?
June 9th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
If someone is asserting expertise in a particular field, they they have an obligation to show that they actually have some expertise in that field. For that, anonymity is a handicap — albeit perhaps not an insuperable.
But if they are just presenting the arguments for a particular position, it is far more important whether their arguments make sense. Who is making the argument is rather beside the point. And it seems far more desirable to have more people making sensible arguments than to have everybody’s identity a matter of public record.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Great summary argument wj. Sometimes anonymity is a hinderance, and sometimes not.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Gaucho, as I said in the earlier thread, the “other channels of communication ” argument that Justin advances openly speaks to one thing and one thing only: JUSTIN’S desire to spread HIS messaging using the work of others. In essence he’s saying he doesn’t like blogging by pseudonymous authors because it makes their postings less useful to HIM for HIS purposes. And his reasoning relies entirely on variants of the argument from authority and argumentum ad populum, which as I noted are logical fallacies in the first place, and his own personal desires.
In rebuttal, Justin derides logical fallacies as “philosophical arguments,” as if the nature of Reality has magically been rearranged in our Brave New World. In doing that he is openly admitting that he is concerned not at all with truth or sound argument, but with maximizing the efficiency of derivative propaganda that utilizes the work of others. (I will pass on the many derogatory-yet-100%-applicable examples available of where that reasoning can lead.)
News flash — many or most of the pseudonymous bloggers on the net are not writing to please Justin or provide him with logically fallacious arguments that Justin can use for Justin’s personal propaganda or posting purposes. They do so for their own personal reasons, and their reasons are entirely their own to judge. Regardless of the name they post under, their writings must be judged for themselves, which includes as a body of work. Their arguments are only as good as the reasoning and evidence they supply, and said reasoning and evidence should always be examined rather than taken as a given just because of WHO they might be. Authorities are just as capable of being idiots as any of the rest of us, and there are a multitude of examples to prove it. Ditto with and redoubled with popular beliefs.
I won’t say there’s never justification in outing a poster or commenter, but the justifiable grounds for doing so look mighty damn slim to me.