On Anonymity

DK has dealt rather nicely with Andrew Marr’s simplistic and clichéd take on bloggers – go read the whole thing for a wonderful slap down of Marr’s nonsense. However, I wanted to add my own thoughts on this subject and in particular, some observations on anonymous blogging. On this subject, Marr writes:

"Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things on line that they wouldn't dream of saying in person."

First up, I’m going to have be pedantic – this blog is not anonymous as such – its author employs a pseudonym, exactly as is the case with many similar blogs to this one. Sure, you may not get the full name of its author on each post on this blog, but you do get the right to comment on what I write and to contact me via e-mail. Which, generally speaking, is more or less the same as you get on many blogs where the authors use their own names (other than the real name, obviously.)

Now, it is a myth that those who blog under pseudonyms are shadowy individuals who closely guard their real identities. In fact, their online monickers are often easy to circumvent. For example, Guido Fawkes, DK, and Tory Bear use online nicknames – but you only have to spend minutes on Google to find out what they are actually called. Furthermore, those who don’t necessarily have their names on their sites are not necessarily hiding – it is just that their blogs maybe haven’t reached the point where someone either wants to find out their identity or they appear on a more mainstream media outlet that reveals their identity.

Furthermore, in my experience, bloggers are actually quite a sociable bunch who are more than happy to meet in real life and share their identities, thoughts and ideas. When I’ve met with pseudonymous bloggers, I haven’t found them to be shady types desperate to hide their identities. Generally, they say hello, give their names, and then ask whether you want a pint (a question to which the answer is always, in my case, yes). Indeed, through my contacts with other bloggers I can guess at the identity of some of those I haven’t met. I’ve never met Mr Eugenides, for example, but I could take an educated guess at who he is just by the friend suggestions that pop up on Facebook.

And let’s slay the myth that using a pseudonym to blog is always an advantage. In fact, Marr’s attack shows the opposite is true. It is easy to dispel that notion that some named bloggers adhere to the cliché tritely trotted out by Marr – you only have to look at the sites of Charlotte Gore or Sunny Hundal to see that they are not the type of sad dweebs that Marr attempts to paint bloggers as. Whereas when you look at this site, you don’t necessarily get a feel for who I am and what I look like. Sure, I could change that by putting my name and a picture on here (something I lack the intention and interest to actually do) – but my point is that having a pseudonym is not the get out of jail free card that it is sometimes made out to be as people can launch attacks on me (and others like me) because of the pseudonym.

But all this is not getting down to perhaps the most pertinent, and controversial, point. Does using a pseudonym make it easier to launch unpleasant attacks on other people? That’s a difficult one to answer, so I’ll rephrase the question slightly – would I use a phrase like “worthless cunts” (a tag on this blog, fact fans) if I was meeting someone face to face and they knew who I was?

The simple answer is – yes I would. But only if they deserved it. Which is rather the point as far as I am concerned. I don’t call my friends or those I meet on a day-to-day basis “worthless cunts” or “witless morons” because they don’t act like “worthless cunts” or “witless morons”, and at most they mildly inconvenience me rather than wrecking the whole country. However, I’ll happily refer to Blair or Brown both as such on this blog and in real life because they have done a lot to fuck up this country and to earn those particular highly offensive tags. The point is that I don’t verbally attack others because I use a pseudonym – I do it because I believe those people deserve to be insulted for what that have done to damage this country and its citizens.

Finally, those who want to be truly anonymous tend to be those who comment on these blogs as, well, anonymous. The rest of us – whether we use our real names or a nickname – are a disparate bunch of people who just happen to be using online media to make our voices heard. The fact that we might not advertise our actual names or always say what others want us to say doesn’t mean that we can be dismissed using the fallacious and clichéd attacks unleashed by Andrew Marr and his ilk.