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Should There Be an Expectation of Permanent Anonymity Online?

Posted Jun 23, 2009 11:48 AM CST
By Molly McDonough

Earlier this month, there was a big brouhaha over the outing by Ed Whelan, at Bench Memos, of the online persona ‘Publius.’

Publius turned out to be South Texas College of Law professor John Blevins, who blogs at Obsidian Wings.

Discussion and outrage across the Web focused on Internet netiquette and specifically whether it’s OK to out someone who has chosen to debate anonymously.

Anonymous speech unquestionably has achieved landmark status in the United States. Just ask the ACLU in Nevada, which is fighting a government effort to ID names of individuals who posted anonymous comments on a Las Vegas newspaper's online article.

So we wondered, as lawyers, do you think should there be limits to such speech on the Net? And should anyone complain or be surprised if they are found out?

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Featured Answer:

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Comments

1.

Evelyn Golden
Jun 24, 2009 5:43 AM CST

Any law professor who blogs “anonymously” should know that eventually, you will be outed.  And for all the others who spew hateful speech (protected by the first amendment) should not take comfort that they will not be outed as well.

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2.

Kathleen Bergin
Jun 24, 2009 9:40 AM CST

Should there be a “right” to anonymity, no.  Not for threats, defamation, incitement, harassment . . . I could go on.  There’s a reason why some speech isn’t protected, and anonymity doesn’t give you a pass.

Should there be an “expectation” of anonymity, yes, if that’s the culture of the blog.  And it is on most law prof blogs that I’m aware of.  In an age when even tenured Profs become the target of purge campaigns, its easy see why anonymity is so important to those who have yet to receive the holy grail.  And that won’t change until the rest of us who make hiring and promotion decisions start behaving like the adults in the room. 

Until then, new profs who can’t blog anonymously won’t blog at all.  Too bad, because some of them have pretty good stuff to say.

And that’s our loss, not just theirs.

Finally, to suggest that Publius should have been outed because his comments were “hate speech” is laughable.  There’s more hate speech in the New York Times’ style section than there is in his blog comments.

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3.

CS
Jun 24, 2009 10:50 AM CST

The price to pay for free speech is that sometimes you have to put up w/people saying things you don’t like.  I’m willing to pay that price, and have had some disagreements w/people online but never felt my opponent should be ‘outed’ because I didn’t like what they said. 

I was once even mildly threatened online, which was a violation of the site’s TOS and the site admin voluntarily divulged to me all the info he had on the sender, (I never even asked!).  I then was able to compare it to some emails I’d gotten, and it turned out the threat was submitted by an employee of a company I was in a dispute with.  Though nothing came of it, I added it to my case documentation, just one more bit of stuff that made them look like the dirt bags they were.  I was grateful the site admin gave me the info because he must’ve felt that person was a genuine threat.  But I’d sure never expect that. 

As a moderator for an online forum, I have a very liberal policy and greatly treasure free speech.  We allow disagreements; we allow people to make fools of themselves.  But like the above mentioned admin, if someone issued a threat, they’d lose their ‘right’ to anonymity by having violated the TOS and I’d have the option to turn over the info if I felt someone’s safety was in danger. 

BUT…for anything that’s just about someone not being able to take criticism, forget it.  Nothing short of a court order would make me divulge the identity of someone just because they were disagreeable.  People should expect to have their anonymity protected as long as they don’t violate the site’s TOS or cross the line into threatening types of speech.  IMO no one has the ‘right’ to force a site’s admin into divulging info for anything less than trying to prevent someone from being harmed.  Free speech is too important to give up for the benefit of those who can’t take the heat, or who have done something to deserve criticism.  Criticism is not a threat.

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4.

Joshua Scott
Jun 24, 2009 11:44 AM CST

I think there’s a right to online anonymity in the same sense that there is for anything else—I don’t have to reveal my name if I don’t want to, and you don’t have the right to do so without my permission.  Of course, as with all rules there are exceptions, as has been pointed out.  You can’t commit crimes and expect to remain anonymous, thereby escaping justice.  But for anything short of law-breaking, I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a right of anonymity. 

Now that doesn’t mean I think government should punish those who reveal the identities of those who would rather be anonymous.  Except in extraordinary cases, that sort of thing is more on the level of politeness than criminality, and frankly the justice system is overloaded as it is.  But just because a right isn’t important enough to write a law over it doesn’t make it any less a right.

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