Anonymity On The Internet Needs To End
You’ve probably been following the drama that occurred between Mike Arrington of TechCrunch and Leo Laporte on an episode of The Gilmor Gang on Laporte’s TWiT.tv network.
Earlier today, Robert Scoble opened a discussion about this issue on Friendfeed. You can read it here – be warned, there are some 744 comments, and like any huge thread on Friendfeed, it’s a laborious process to follow.
This is the incident in a nutshell. Laporte had a new Palm Pre on his show, and Arrington asked if he paid for it. Leo replied that he did not and that it was a ‘one-week review unit’, which means that after seven days you’re meant to return it. Laporte then, rightly or wrongly, assumed Arrington was implying that his opinion on the Pre was compromised, and went ballistic.
Thanks to this very popular YouTube snippet of the incident, it was quickly all over the internet and large conversations began to take place on Friendfeed, Twitter, Laporte’s IRC chat room, and Techcrunch itself.
The latter was where most of the damage was done – many commentators, mostly anonymous, chose to attack Arrington repeatedly, and many threats and allegations were made. Arrington has heavily edited his ‘Ouch’ post on several occasions, but still intact is his reference to an incident that occurred at a conference in Munich earlier this year, where somebody walked up to him and deliberately spat in his face. After the spat with Laporte, who has a very strong following, Arrington was the recipient of a lot of negative and overly hostile comments on his blog and around the internet. (He mentioned at one point that TechCrunch deleted over 600 of these comments).
Here’s the thing: Arrington and Laporte are both well-seasoned pros and should have known better. I think they share equal blame for their behaviour on the show, and it’s to their credit that they’ve mostly resolved their differences (although Arrington has done a few strange things in the aftermath, such as deleting TechCrunch’s Friendfeed account, which has subsequently been recreated in an unofficial capacity.)
The problem here isn’t these guys – it’s the reaction. And it isn’t that the public doesn’t have a right to respond and comment on issues like this. That’s unavoidable, and if you’re a public figure, which Arrington is, certainly in the tech world, then you have to expect the good with the bad. If you do something that makes people unhappy, then expect to be called out on it. I don’t think Mike would assume otherwise.
The problem lies with anonymous feedback. Anybody can be a big hero and call somebody else a POS when they’re hiding behind a proxy and an alias. What does that prove? What does that mean? Nothing.
I’m all for having a strong opinion, and voicing it. As long as they’re not defamatory or outright lies, I’m 100 per cent behind freedom of speech when it comes to those opinions. But if you have something to say, then you need to stand up and be counted. You need to accept that for your comment to matter – for it to mean something – it needs to be backed up with a verifiable account. We need to know it is you making that statement.
The mob mentality, which Scoble talks about at length on his Friendfeed thread, is never pretty. In real life it’s a frightening thing to see. But at least these are real people, and the legal system can make them accountable for their actions. When you get an anonymous mob on the internet, the majority of whom are too chicken-shit to say boo to a goose in real life because they don’t have a screen to hide behind, it produces a virtual poison which spreads quickly and far too easily around different networks, with almost zero accountability. The worst of it leads to defamation and libel, bullying, and threats of violence. And whatever good has arisen could just as easily have been accomplished without anonymity.
I’ve discussed this with colleagues before and one of them once made the analogy that in the offline world we are provided anonymity in certain situations for our protection, the common example being when we vote. That’s fine, and I accept that’s a positive – but it’s an apples and oranges example. While you can vote anonymously, you cannot do so unless you are legally registered. The only part that is anonymous is that your actual vote is not published alongside your name. This is a very different thing to making a comment in a newspaper, or in an internet forum or blog, particularly if that comment is attacking another individual.
Twitter recently announced plans to introduce verified accounts to the network, and this is something I’m 100 per cent behind. They’re going to start with public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and “other well known individuals at risk of impersonation”, but I hope it doesn’t end there. I want my account to be verified, too. I’d love to see the internet as a collective embrace an online identity program that we could all sign up for, and that made each of us verifiable as individuals. We’ve had this in various ways with security tests on websites pretty much since the web began – I see no reason why a person shouldn’t be afforded the same protection.
As it is, the internet sometimes operates like a reverse communist state, where industry leaders are often limited in the things they can say because they risk a violent backlash from the anonymous mob.
I’m not asking for online ID cards. I don’t care about your race, hair colour, gender, religious beliefs or occupation – although if you want to share that stuff in your profile then that should be an optional extra. All I want is a one-click way for everybody to hit a button and the system says, “Yes, this is really Sheamus.” We’re kind of seeing the early stages of this with things like Facebook Connect – I don’t think it will be too long before this kind of trusted authentication becomes totally cross-platform. And people won’t be as resistant as you might think – the majority are already very liberal with their personal data on social networks (perhaps overly so in some cases).
You could, of course, opt out of being verified. That’s an autonomy that must exist. But by doing so, you then accept the consequences – should they so choose, blogs and newspapers would have the facility to block all submissions from anonymous, unverifiable commentators. And I believe that not only would the majority of them take this step, they would be encouraged to do so. Certainly by administrators, whose time is severely impacted by comment moderation.
Anonymous message forums and networks will of course always exist, but if their ability to impact on other communities was restricted in this way, who would care?
To reiterate – everybody has a right to be heard. Freedom of speech affords us the luxury of being able to openly express our opinion. This is something that should never change. But there’s a world of difference between having an opinion and hiding behind one.
If you’ve got something to say, then by all means, go ahead. But don’t expect anybody to listen if you haven’t got the balls to say it yourself.
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“You could, of course, opt out of being verified. That’s an autonomy that must exist.”
Thanks for that… your title scared me. I agree that we need to hear from anonymous speech (or, at least, as anonymous as “anonymous” actually is on the Internet today
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But I don’t think it’s solely publishers’ job to factor in the usefulness of anonymous info — it’s also up to us readers to discount words for which the speaker will not accept responsibility. This includes many of the “sources say” and “leaks” types of story which regularly appear on Techmeme. Lots of readers still fall victim to Salinger Syndrome.
John Dowdell’s last blog post..Adobe in Enterprise
As a forum owner and blogger who has had a couple of posts go viral, I know exactly what you are talking about and can see a lot of benefit with having your online identity follow you wherever you go, just like your offline identity.
On the other hand, I know many of my forum posters do use it to get feedback and advice on issues that they’d rather their offline circle not be able to read. I can respect that, you wouldn’t want a potential employer to Google you and find a thread talking about a yeast infection that just won’t go away. So, I think there is utility to having the ability to post under a pseudonym, especially if one is a part of an ongoing online community and not a one-off thing like blog posting.
It’s fascinating to me the things people will do when it’s not directly tied to them in any way. And I agree with John Dowdell that readers need to be more savvy about who and what to trust on the internet. Then again, you’ll always find people who believe something because their coworker said it happened to a friend of their second cousin, so maybe it’s a losing battle.
Tracy’s last blog post..People who need pupa are the pluckiest people
That’s a fair point Tracy, certainly about your example of some kind of infection. As I said I’m not proposing you cannot in any way post anonymously – just that I believe we’ll soon have to accept that increasingly anonymity will have less weight on the internet. I don’t think it’s fair for a second that a journalist or author puts their real name to an article, only to then be slammed and heavily criticised by ‘brave’ individuals hiding behind aliases and proxies.
As I said in my piece, there will always be anonymous communities, and quite possibly when it comes to personal issues this is to be advised. And absolutely in countries where freedom of speech is not safely afforded to the masses. But I’m really thinking about newspapers and ‘authority’ blogs when I make the statement that titles this article. And as newspapers and social media increasingly begin to blur, accountability on both sides is going to become an issue.
Everybody should be accountable – journalists hiding behind aliases to criticise rivals is just as bad, perhaps more so, than some 15-year old kid cowering beneath a proxy. I find it hard to believe that anyone can (and will) make a reasonable case for the anonymous mob.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Slightly worried with all this talk about anonymity. I agree with you 100% that if you wish to have your say, have/say it…just have the balls to sign your name to it.
Point to ponder here: I am not in a profession right now that necessitates my true identity to be known. I am here to learn & enjoy the interaction. Were I promoting myself I wouldn’t hesitate to reveal my true identity.)
Although I do believe a good article/Tweet/blog stands on its own feet, credibility can only be established once someone is prepared to put themselves ‘out there’. A good example of this and someone whose opinion I respect is Jack Schofield @ The Guardian. He has an excellent reputation and I value his Tweets highly, i.e. credible reputation.
No need to worry – your opening paragraph is essentially the point in a nutshell. And your example of Jack Schofield is a valid one – I’m a big fan of Jack’s, too. So tell me – how is it in any way fair if he puts his good name to an article (that might be controversial, say, albeit valid) and then a mob of anonymous commentators rip him to shreds? It isn’t, and I fail to see how anyone could make a valid case for it.
Opinion and constructive criticism is fine and to be encouraged – as long as you’re prepared to put your (real) name to it. Hiding behind somebody to make defamatory comments or threats of violence to and/or about them, is not. That’s really what this is about.
Unfortunately there are a lot of “window lickers” out there who seem to think they can do/say/behave as they wish. Here’s no accountability. Regrettably even people with impeccable credentials have to “be the bigger man” and “rise above” the rubbish and take it from where it comes. This is the downside of being high profile on such a public platform. No, abuse in any form is not acceptable. What action can we take? Blatantly block people & advertise that this is the action we’re taking and why, but eventually we may run the risk of it coming full circle & may be a case of who will police the police?
In a era where transparency counts, I really apprechiated your approach to the matter. Through this importance of commenting will rise even more and open up for more quality discussions. Still the “unauthentification” on discussion boards, forum etc. offers a space where it’s possible to overcome race&gender&age barriers, that’s a fascination about it … as you said this communities will continue to exist, for some movements it’s fundamental (like anonymous) … now it’s about to determine on which extend
Indeed. I’m not for a second saying anonymity has to completely go – there are always valid reasons where this is important. For example, with very personal (or medical) discourse, or when an individual can be at risk of losing his or her job by presenting themselves in a certain way (say, sexuality) or in a country where freedom of speech is seriously oppressed.
But I believe in any standard situation where the writer of an article is putting his legitimate name to a piece – say, a journalist in a newspaper – it’s not too much to ask that all those who wish to comment do the same, is it? I don’t think that’s too radical a step. It’s common courtesy.
As said, if you’ve got something to say, then have the courage to stand up and be counted. Otherwise, feel free to anonymously complain and attack, but you’ll have to do so elsewhere.
Appreciate your comments Jack.