More Wailin'

Okay, here are a few more thoughts on pseudonymous blogging. I may shut up about this eventually.

One of the great things about the blogosphere and the Web in general, it is often said, is that the barriers to entry are effectively gone. No longer are you required to own the printing press or the broadcast license to have your say.

Something that's often overlooked in this warm fuzziness is that part of what gets to be said are unpopular opinions and ideally, even uncomfortable truths. And here, we should recognize that while the barriers to publishing have been lowered, there still exist the barriers of consequence. Absent the ability to shield one's identity, only the powerful and well-connected get to shoot their mouths off without fear. Try to imagine Rush Limbaugh saying what he says every day if he were only a hobbyist bloviator, fulminating on some local access radio station. He'd have been silenced long ago and fired from whatever day job he had.

As I said earlier, I used to be against online anonymity. I have had my mind changed about this by hearing stories of people denied advancement in their careers, people fired from their current jobs, and even cases where stalking, harassment, and death threats were made.

I have been further convinced by discussions on the Bloggingheads.tv forum, where I've made friends whom I know (or in some cases knew for a long time) only by their online handles. One is a liberal who lives in a small town, and works for a company in that town, where he is surrounded by evangelical Christians and die-hard Bush supporters. Another is a researcher who feels hamstrung in his ability to publish his scientific work by the old boys' network that runs his lab and that referees the journals to which he submits. A third is a conservative philosophy professor who is trying to get tenure at a liberal California university. And so on.

Do some people abuse the privilege of hiding their meatspace identities online? Without a doubt. There is no shortage of social misfits venting their spleens in personal attacks. I get them all the time on the Bh.tv forums, from people who dislike my unapologetic liberalism, militant atheism, fondness for Barack Obama, contempt for wingnuts, frequency of posting, or whatever. But so what? They're easy enough to ignore (or to respond to in kind, to be honest), and the old saying about heat and the kitchen applies. And, as I said earlier, there's a world of difference between leaving turds in comments section and forums under "Anonymous" and establishing an online identity as a pseudonymous blogger. In the latter instance, you're usually criticizing ideas and actions (however caustically or snarkily), you're building and maintaining a knowable persona, and in any case, it's your own slice of the Web -- you're not tromping your muddy footprints all over anybody else's space.

We may not always like what other people have to say, and we may sometimes resent that they aren't signing their names to their screeds. But ultimately, as Johann Hari has noted, the cure for the problems associated with free speech is always and only more free speech.

Ed Whelan is a well-connected sort, as far as I can tell. His primary focus most recently has been publishing attacks on Judge Sotomayor that in countries with stricter laws would be called slander and libel. He has been hammering on a couple of out-of-context quotes and extrapolating all manner of nonsense from them. He does not have to fear any meatspace consequences from this -- he'll always be able to get a paycheck from the inexhaustible supply of wingnut welfare that keeps money-losing organs like the National Review and wingnut "think" tanks going in perpetuity. (As long as he restricts his distorted attacks to liberals, at least.) Publius, on the other hand, is not nearly as well-connected, and he has a list of legitimate concerns. More to the point, he has been rightfully and righteously criticizing Whelan's published works regarding Judge Sotomayor, and not, say, indulging himself in a campaign of personal smears. His voice should be allowed to be heard without his having to feel like he's gambling with his or his relatives' job prospects.

You have to wonder about people who whine about "cowardly" pseudonymous bloggers. What difference does it make whether you know someone by an established pen name or his or her meatspace name? What are you going to do with the latter information? Make threats?