Blogging and Anonymity

Bloggers are a childish lot, myself included. We're all prone to throwing our toys out of the pram on occasion, and occasionally saying things behind the safety of a computer screen that we'd be FAR too cowardly to say to anybody's face.

But the worst of us are commonly the 'anonymous' bloggers.

Anonymity is a delicious mask to hide behind, resulting in far too many bloggers falling foul of what the Internet has come to call 'John Gabriel's Great Internet Fuckwad Theory.'

This theory evolved on webcomic Penny Arcade

But the fact is, not all anonymous bloggers are idiots. In fact, many people blog behind the shield of anonymity for legitimate reasons.

After all, the problem with expressing opinions over the 'net is that you can later be called to task for them. I mention in this post some examples of Internet activity coming back to bite poor bloggers - including the story of a schoolteacher fired for publishing a picture of her consuming an alcoholic beverage on MySpace.

I know plenty of 'anonymous' bloggers who write incognito to protect their 'real-life' reputations - and that freedom to truly express themselves is why their blogs tend to be good. 'Out and proud' bloggers, myself included, occasionally censor ourselves because people we know might be reading.

So anonymity is a choice - and one that evolved bloggers respect.

Which is why is was incredibly disappointed to hear about National Review Online hack Ed Whelans smugly 'outing' an anonymous blogger who dared to mock him.

Ed Whelan, a conservative pundit, was so incensed by a response posted by anonymous blogger publius that he tracked down publius' real identity and shared it with the readers of his blog.

"I’ve been reliably informed that publius is in fact the pseudonym of law professor John F. Blevins of the South Texas College of Law," Whelan smugly announced, in a post entitled Exposing an Irresponsible Anonymous Blogger. He brushes off the mistake publius was criticizing him for - instead declaring "Gee, I think it’s the guy hiding behind the pseudonym who has reason to be embarrassed."

publius, AKA John Blevins, held up his hand after this exposure and admitted his identity - revealing that he'd written anonymously because: "I’ve heard that pre-tenure blogging can cause problems – and I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable based on my posts."

I think Blevins has handled his 'outing' with grace and class - which is more than I can say for Whelan. As a contributor to National Review Online, I thought he'd have had at least a modicum of respect for his blogging peer. Instead, he smugly gloated about his 'victory' in three follow up posts.

He brushed off criticisms of what he did, arguing that people "seem to assume that I owed some sort of obligation to Blevins not to expose his pseudonymous blogging. I find this assumption baffling. A blogger may choose to blog under a pseudonym for any of various self-serving reasons, but I don’t see why anyone else has any obligation to respect the blogger’s self-serving decision."

Whelan clearly doesn't 'get it.' His decision to 'out' Blevins - deliberately, and with the understanding that doing so might criticize the professor's job - says more about Whelan that it will ever say about Blevins.

Ed Whelan was unable to sustain an intellectual debate with his detractors, so he resorted to the final, desperate act of the ethically bankrupt - he decided to make a 'real life' attack against somebody in 'revenge' for having his Internet credibility questioned.

It's frankly pathetic. If Whelan was half the man he arrogantly thinks he is, he'd have been able to nail publius in debate, without resorting to personal attacks. What he did is disrespectful, cowardly, pathetic and reprehensible; a well-respected 49-year-old legal professional has reduced himself to childish antics.

But while Ed Whelan is clearly the 'bad guy' here, it does present a sobering warning to the rest of us.

There is no such thing as Internet 'anonymity' Not truly. That's why we've all got to think very hard about exactly what we share on the Internet.

Whatever we write, we may very well have those words thrown back in our face at some point in the future. Therefore, before you hit the 'publish post' button, perhaps we should ask ourselves if we're really willing to stand by what we write.

To Blog or not to Blog?

Sadly, no less than three of my favorite blogs have vanished in the course of the last month or so - their authors later explaining that they removed them because of privacy issues. Either people they knew - or, more worryingly, people they didn't - made comments or personal inquiries that left our bloggers deeply uncomfortable.

It's an issue that my wife and I have discussed recently and a little tête à tête between us nearly resulted in me shutting down my blog in frustration (I didn't like the idea of having to run every post past an unofficial censor before publishing.)

But the worrying thing is - Wifey had a point. Successful blogging means exposing yourself to every friend, acquaintance, stranger and nutjob on the Internet. Who knows what the result of that could be?

Many bloggers choose to blog anonymously - which gives them the delicious freedom to write about whatever they want. This is how bloggers like 'Belle Du Jour' and 'Girl with a One Track Mind' got started - writing about their steamy sex lives. However, anonymous blogging carries it's own dangers (as two of my deleted blogging pals discovered) when their real life friends and family discover their 'anonymous' blog and wind up with intimate and uncensored access to their most private (though public) thoughts.

Other bloggers, such as myself, choose to blog absolutely openly. This is great as it gives a way for friends and family to keep up to date with your adventures (or lack of them) and is perfect for an aspiring writer like myself, since blogging is self-publicity at it's most affordable.

The problem with a non-anonymous blog? Well, for a start you sometimes have to censor yourself. I don't write about particularly seedy topics, but I am well aware that whatever I write will eventually be read by my father.

Secondly - you can't hide from a blog. Once you've written something, it's out on Internet forever and there have been all sorts of stories about bloggers loosing their jobs after bitching about work on their blog - or losing out on employment when a 'google' search by a prospective employer brings up a blog filled with drunken debauchery.

If you're not blogging anonymously, you have to take ownership of everything you write and be prepared for anybody - absolutely anybody - to read it.

But most worryingly of all about a non-anonymous blog: How much of your personal information is available for everybody to see (and steal?)

This is what worried my wife, especially after the birth of our son. The blog of aspiring novelist Roland Hulme contained our names, a rough geological location, pictures of our friends and family and even personal information (e.g. a birthdate, gleaned from a 'happy birthday to me' post written on my birthday.)

Is it enough for somebody to steal my identity? Not by a long shot - and they'd have to wade through pages and pages of diatribes about religion and politics to get it. But it's enough information to make the typical Internet shenanigans (like rogue and offensive comments) seem worryingly personal.

Like, when my son was born, somebody left the delightful comment: "Argh another Ginge......get yourself sterilised. Hope the doctor slapped you."

First off - my son's not ginger. Secondly, as much as a comment like this would, in Great Britain, be considered 'harmless, just poking fun' it was pretty shitty for somebody to write.

So by blogging non-anonymously, you're potentially opening yourself up to all sorts of trouble. It was a comment on a public blog that caused the third of my blogging chums to shut up shop (at least temporarily.)

So I guess I can see why my wife would have concerns - and in some way, I share them.

But I think you have to end up taking the American approach to things when it comes to blogging. "If we leave now, the (Internet) terrorists have won!"

I enjoy blogging. I love the real-life and 'Blogosphere' friends I keep in contact with here. I love how some of the issues I discuss raise a lot of debate. I enjoy forcing myself to write every day and have been surprised at how my writing has generally improved as a result.

Blogging is an important part of my life. I'm a gratuitous self publicist and blogging gives me a chance to 'expose myself' to everybody without having to wear a dirty mac and run around frightening people in the park.

Blogging, for me, is an outlet for the tangled thoughts in my head. If I didn't publish them online, my wife would have divorced me long ago for trying to discuss McCain vs Obama in the bedroom.

But the recent spate of blogging casualties has made me reexamine the whole blogging phenomenon and I have to admit, I've noticed myself being a little more sensible about how much of my own life I share on the 'net.

You'll notice I refer to Wifey and Baby by rather unoriginal pseudonyms (like, erm, Wifey and Baby) rather than their real names. And I still avoid discussing hot button topics that might effect me at work (which is killing me, since there's an angry rant just begging to be written about a new development in the office.)

I think it's time to tone it down a bit - at least for a while. Sometimes we all need to 'dig in' and avoid the crossfire. After all, after more than two years of blogging, I don't want to become just another Internet statistic.

But don't worry. Militant Ginger will (touch wood) keep on delivering.