I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away… People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.
Now I understand where Dr Dawg and the others are coming from. I'm frequently appalled by some of the vicious garbage on the internet. Nobody should be able to defame someone or bully someone online. And get away with it.
But here's the thing eh? If you are defamed or bullied online you probably should use the legal system to punish those responsible. Instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, punishing all kinds of innocent people. And playing into the hand of Big Business and Big Government.
Because there are many, many, many, good reasons to remain anonymous.
And the marginalized and the oppressed of this world have the most to lose.
What’s at stake is people’s right to protect themselves, their right to actually maintain a form of control that gives them safety. If companies like Facebook and Google are actually committed to the safety of its users, they need to take these complaints seriously. Not everyone is safer by giving out their real name. Quite the opposite; many people are far LESS safe when they are identifiable. And those who are least safe are often those who are most vulnerable.
And there’s nothing acceptable about those who are most privileged and powerful telling those who aren’t that it’s OK for their safety to be undermined.
Now try to imagine what the internet would look like if the marginalized were excluded, and it was the musty preserve of privileged people. Yup. BOOOOOOORING.
As for me... I'm not really anonymous, people know my first name, where I live, and I use my full name on other internet sites. But when I started blogging I decided to do so anonymously because I was afraid that some crazy homophobe might turn up on my doorstep, with a Bible ....or a GUN.
And sure enough one did try to track me down, and had to be caught and punished hospitalized. Which was scary enough. And I don't have to worry about losing my job, or being arrested and tortured by some murderous regime. Unlike so many others.
Although I do worry that Big Business wants to know more about you than even your closest friends.
The kind of naming policy that Facebook and Google Plus have is actually a radical departure from the way identity and speech interact in the real world. They attach identity more strongly to every act of online speech than almost any real world situation does.
So they can sell you stuff.
And what I think is even more alarming is that Big Government wants to blow up anonymity as well. Because they have seen how the internet can be used to organize protests and Arab Springs. How it can make the youth move as one. So they're cracking down EVERYWHERE.
Because let there be absolutely no doubt, if the Harper Cons allow the police to search computers without a proper warrant, it will be the beginning of the end of internet freedom in Canada. Police will use their new powers to the max. Who can blame them eh? And they WILL be abused.
The writing is on the wall all over the world.
As in if we don't stop them, a wall, in a dark and secluded place, will be the only place you will be able to publish your opinions and remain anonymous....
Yup. When Big Business, Big Government AND Dr Dawg want to bust anonymity, the writing really is on the wall.
But at least the good doctor has started a conversation that we all need to have. Before it's too late.
Would you blog, or write comments, if you couldn't be anonymous? Think about it.
It was a compelling story. A young Syrian-American lesbian blogging about life and love in the darkness of a police state, only to be kidnapped.
Arraf wrote a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus," a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria's violent uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests. She was detained after weeks on the run in the Syrian capital, family members said Tuesday.
Except that Amina wasn't wasn't Amina. She wasn't kidnapped. And the Gay Girl in Damascus was written by a guy.
The Gay Straight Girl Guy in Damascus Scotland claims his motives were noble.
I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative voıce may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone -- I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.
Because of you, Mr. MacMaster, a lot of the real activists in the LGBT community became under the spotlight of the authorities in Syria. These activists, among them myself, had to change so much in their attitude and their lives to protect themselves from the positional harm your little stunt created. You have, sir, put a lot of lives, mine and some friends included, in harm's way so you can play your little game of fictional writing.
As for me I don't know what to think. The fact is that blog focused a lot of international attention on the fascist Syrian regime, and the oppression of LGBT people. Which is great eh? Unless you live there, and the international community won't do anything to save you.
And then there's this:
But at least these things are true.
All kind of people are being oppressed and murdered in Syria, including a lot of real gay girls in Damascus. While the world looks on helplessly.
The truth may or may not be stranger than fiction. But only it will set us free.
Yikes. Talk about a scary day on the internet. I woke up to be greeted by this warning every time I visited my site, or tried to publish anything.
The mighty Blogger was blocking my teeny blog, because it apparently contained:
"elements from rpc.blogrolling.com which appears to host malware."
So now I'm in a panic thinking blogrolling.com what's dat? Malware? Doesn't that come from porn sites? Why me? Is it the gun lobby? Or the sinister Con operative Snuffleupagus?
So I spent about six hours this evening scanning every corner of my computer, or slogging wearily through a jungle of HTML code looking for signs of alien life. I could see that people all over the blogosphere were having the same problem.
But nothing came up. No viruses, no malware, no nothing. So now I'm thinking either this bug is the latest model from Russia. Or Kory Teneycke is smarter than I thought. Because as we know, like the Russians, he's capable of ANYTHING. Or was.
Then tonight just when I was about to give up, I decided to take a chance and visit my Chernobyl site, and there at the bottom of the page, staring me in the face, under the blogroll of the Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians, was a little widget...... "POWERED BY BLOGROLLING."
I removed it with one click of the mouse, and the big red scary warning disappeared. Instantly.
But by then it was too late.
About an hour before, in a state of total distraction at the thought that Kornhole might be smarter than me, I had tossed my baggy army pants into the washer.... with my cell phone in them.
So are you feeling sorry for me yet? I didn't think so.
Oh boy. Sometimes I hate the internet.
On the other hand it's days like these that remind me, how much I depend on it, and how much I enjoy blogging.
So what the heck. Who needs a non waterproof cell phone eh? I got my little blog back.
It's almost the weekend.
So it must be a wonderful life...
Hey!! Is that my cell phone at the bottom of the pool?
Or the beginning of the end? Maybe. If Rupert Murdoch gets his way.
Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model. "The current days of the internet will soon be over." But only if his competitors do the same, and form some kind of news cartel. Web users are naturally sceptical.
"As long as there is internet, there will be free content. And as long as there is free content, sites trying to grow on a paid-content business model are not going to survive. It is as simple as that,"
"Newspaper industry should just die and journalism should be democratized. We have blogs, forums, news aggregators... why should I pay for content that someone else can write just as well if not better than the biased reporter/editors at some giant media conglomerate?"
But others not so much.
"I would gladly pay for the service that reporters provide to me! I know it costs money to investigate and report the news and I don't want the news to be controlled by advertisers."
"Pay for news? We have to, unless we want to get our news from a bunch of people who think because they have a blog they are a journalist."
And what's the alternative? "We have to look to a future of smaller journalistic staff and greater user participation..."
And is that what we want? More information than ever before, and fewer journalists to make sense of it? Is that really all she wrote?
Maybe it’s because I’m staying at the Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard, but I keep thinking of newspapers as Norma Desmond.
Papers are still big. It’s the screens that got small.
As a disgusted Desmond asks from behind dark glasses: “And who have they got now? Some nobodies — a lot of pale little frogs croaking pish-posh.”
Oh boy. I'm not sure about the future of online news...and the internet as we know it. But one way or the other we are going to pay for it....
