Tom Grubisich at the Washington Post is scared of anonymous posters on the Internet.
He likens the use of a handle on blogs as being the same as a blowhard with a fake name interrupting a school board meeting.
You notice his nametag -- "anticrat424." Between his sentences, you interject, "Excuse me, who are you?"
Does Grubisich go to school board meetings? I've been to more than a few and I've never seen anyone wonder who the loudmouth at the podium is. It's not because he might have a name tag or might have announced who he was when he got the mic. It's because we listen to what he says and decide whether or not we agree with him.
This is the point Captain Ed makes in his post on the subject. The point of Internet anonymity is that we don't listen to each other because of our names; we listen to each other because of what we have to say. Then we accept or reject those thoughts.
But old media types have a really hard time with the anonymous thing. You can't send in anonymous letters to the editor, either. In fact, the only anonymous thing reporters love is sources who will bash President Bush, Republicans, Halliburton, or Big Oil. Then they will champion freedom of speech from the anonymous source. Or something like that.
Captain Ed doesn't address a couple of very real problems with giving out one's particulars on the Internet. First there's the AutoAdmit case, where one law student had a job offer rescinded because he was the "Chief Education Director" for the site which had published a "free for all" style message board. What happens to people like the student, who didn't write any of the offensive comments but allowed others to do so? Is printing his name and ruining his chances at a good law career ok for Grubisich?
The second problem I see with forcing people to use their real name on the Internet is something most women are accutely aware of. That's the stalkers and nutcases on the Internet getting your personal information and making hay with it. The female student at the heart of the AutoAdmit story knows about this, the harassment that goes far beyond the Internet itself, to reach her in real life.
I don't give my full name on the Internet. Ever. And I don't put out much personal information about my loved ones. I use names occasionally but try not to. That's because there are a lot of wackos out there and they get pretty pissy when you say things they don't like. I don't want to deal with it and I don't want my family to deal with it either. So, sorry if Grubisich thinks all of us anonymous bloggers are cretins, but I'd rather be a safe cretin than a front page story.
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