We are living in a world where your government can track you and end your way of life based on what you say. That’s enough motivation for anonymity for anyone, especially those who never have been in the public limelight before. Think about all the countless lives ruined by Facebook posts, deservedly or not.
I am not monetizing my participation here. Nor am I judging anyone who wants to stay anonymous if they choose to.
Not to mention I posted things I was freaking out about on Facebook in January due to being displaced from the fires so had time to read project 2025 but got blackballed by a lot of friends
You could use a pseudonym or stay anonymous and still be honest and forthcoming about what you have to gain or lose if your argument succeeds or fails. It’s the dishonest deployment of anonymity in public discourse, or the concealment of material information about a speaker even whose identity is known in one light, e.g. an ex-Pentagon talking head on Lockheed’s board who appears on a news show to talk about war without telling the viewer of his connection, which deserves scorn. The worst example is the government agent posing as an unaffiliated third party in a chat room to steer or sabotage a political discussion (Cass Sunstein called it “cognitive infiltration”). I take your point, which is extremely well said. I just think it needs a typology.
Yep THIS!!!! Haven’t even read it but read five words and had to respond. When I started on here back in idk when February? I was scared to put my real name once I was aware of what was going down but knew there was no way to speak with conviction of my name wasn’t attached. 🙏
Of course. It's the same reason I won't pay for an anonymous newsletter. Real relationships require trust on both sides, forged by humans - this includes societal ones. Building trust requires risk, anonymity is unable to build trust.
Need to distinguish between anonymity and pseudonymity. Anonymous publication stands or falls by itself (and usually falls). If I post under a pseudonym, then the credibility of what I write will be largely determined the credibillity (or lack of credibillity) of what I've written previously. That's been true since the days of the Federalist Papers and probably earlier
In the current circumstances of the Internet, that will typically matter more than whatever credibility I might gain or lose from my job title, public achievements etc. It's true that whether or not you are using a pseudonym you should be honest about conflicts of interest.
As regards privacy, the same argument as yours was made in relation to the secret ballot (an Australian innovation) and rejected. There are times when it is appropriate to show your face, and that's the case for some in the US, but
The danger in what you argue, and I am not saying that your point is wholly invalid, is that even though you are careful to distinguish between political speech in democratic regimes and dissent, journalism and whistleblowing in autocratic ones (or just in general; see Deep Throat and Watergate), if democratic countries start requiring real names even just for political speech, autocratic countries will collapse the distinction in the other direction and claim that they're just doing the same when they further crack down on anonymous dissent, journalism and whistleblowing. (Germany's head of government, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, already wants to end online anonymity: https://reclaimthenet.org/friedrich-merzs-push-to-end-online-anonymity-has-a-troubling-subtext)
If you are merely arguing that as a social convention we should discount political speech made by anyone posting anonymously, that is a fine argument to make, of course. I am not saying I agree with it necessarily, but it is certainly one worth considering.
(There were also, of course, the Anti-Federalist Papers and the Federalist Papers, published under pseudonyms; I concede that they were published before the enactment of the current US Constitution, but the Revolutionary War had concluded by that time and the United States would adopt the Bill of Rights amendments in only a few years' time.)
We are living in a world where your government can track you and end your way of life based on what you say. That’s enough motivation for anonymity for anyone, especially those who never have been in the public limelight before. Think about all the countless lives ruined by Facebook posts, deservedly or not.
I am not monetizing my participation here. Nor am I judging anyone who wants to stay anonymous if they choose to.
Not to mention I posted things I was freaking out about on Facebook in January due to being displaced from the fires so had time to read project 2025 but got blackballed by a lot of friends
You could use a pseudonym or stay anonymous and still be honest and forthcoming about what you have to gain or lose if your argument succeeds or fails. It’s the dishonest deployment of anonymity in public discourse, or the concealment of material information about a speaker even whose identity is known in one light, e.g. an ex-Pentagon talking head on Lockheed’s board who appears on a news show to talk about war without telling the viewer of his connection, which deserves scorn. The worst example is the government agent posing as an unaffiliated third party in a chat room to steer or sabotage a political discussion (Cass Sunstein called it “cognitive infiltration”). I take your point, which is extremely well said. I just think it needs a typology.
Yep THIS!!!! Haven’t even read it but read five words and had to respond. When I started on here back in idk when February? I was scared to put my real name once I was aware of what was going down but knew there was no way to speak with conviction of my name wasn’t attached. 🙏
If I meant I’m a bad texter …
Of course. It's the same reason I won't pay for an anonymous newsletter. Real relationships require trust on both sides, forged by humans - this includes societal ones. Building trust requires risk, anonymity is unable to build trust.
Need to distinguish between anonymity and pseudonymity. Anonymous publication stands or falls by itself (and usually falls). If I post under a pseudonym, then the credibility of what I write will be largely determined the credibillity (or lack of credibillity) of what I've written previously. That's been true since the days of the Federalist Papers and probably earlier
In the current circumstances of the Internet, that will typically matter more than whatever credibility I might gain or lose from my job title, public achievements etc. It's true that whether or not you are using a pseudonym you should be honest about conflicts of interest.
As regards privacy, the same argument as yours was made in relation to the secret ballot (an Australian innovation) and rejected. There are times when it is appropriate to show your face, and that's the case for some in the US, but
"Common Sense" was published anonymously.
And Mr. Payne almost certainly would have attributed it to himself if he had the protection of the First Amendment. I think that's the difference.
The danger in what you argue, and I am not saying that your point is wholly invalid, is that even though you are careful to distinguish between political speech in democratic regimes and dissent, journalism and whistleblowing in autocratic ones (or just in general; see Deep Throat and Watergate), if democratic countries start requiring real names even just for political speech, autocratic countries will collapse the distinction in the other direction and claim that they're just doing the same when they further crack down on anonymous dissent, journalism and whistleblowing. (Germany's head of government, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, already wants to end online anonymity: https://reclaimthenet.org/friedrich-merzs-push-to-end-online-anonymity-has-a-troubling-subtext)
If you are merely arguing that as a social convention we should discount political speech made by anyone posting anonymously, that is a fine argument to make, of course. I am not saying I agree with it necessarily, but it is certainly one worth considering.
(There were also, of course, the Anti-Federalist Papers and the Federalist Papers, published under pseudonyms; I concede that they were published before the enactment of the current US Constitution, but the Revolutionary War had concluded by that time and the United States would adopt the Bill of Rights amendments in only a few years' time.)
“On the internet no one knows you’re a dog.” Wasn’t that the guiding ideal?
You go Mike ❤️🔥
I can’t agree more: and thanks for a great elucidation