Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 21:21:51 -0400
From: Gene Galin
Subject: My Take on Using “Real Names”
The discussion about using “real names” on the chatlist [and bulletin board] comes up every several years (usually around election time).
Please don’t underestimate the chatlist [and bulletin board] member. Chatlist [and bulletin board] members are intelligent enough to evaluate the source of an anonymous writing. They can see it is anonymous. They can evaluate its anonymity along with its message, as long as they are permitted, as they should be, to read that message. And then, once they have done so, it is for them to decide what is “responsible,” what is valuable, and what is truth.
Protecting anonymity is necessary to induce some authors to contribute valuable information to the marketplace of ideas.
Anonymous authors historically have made contributions to the “progress of mankind”. There are benign reasons that an author may choose to remain anonymous: fear of retaliation or reprisal, the desire to avoid social ostracism, the wish to protect privacy, or the fear that the audience’s biases will distort the meaning of the work.
“Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority” without which public discourse would certainly suffer.
An author’s decision to remain anonymous is an exercise of autonomy over choice of content, and “an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose his or her true identity.” The decision to remain anonymous is an editorial judgment like any other, which makes choosing to omit one’s name no different than choosing to omit an opposing viewpoint.
Speakers may use the shield of anonymity for a variety of purposes, only some of which may be consistent with the public good; at the same time, audiences may not accord anonymous speech as much value as attributed speech.
“The First Amendment, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, confers upon authors a right to speak anonymously or pseudonymously, even when this right interferes with audiences’ attempts to decode their messages.”
From the Lidsky and Cotter paper –
Judge Learned Hand once famously wrote that “the First Amendment . . . presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.” As Judge Hand recognized, democracy rests on our faith in citizens’ ability to decide for themselves where truth lies in public discourse.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/institutes/bclt/ipsc/papers2/Cotter-Lidsky.doc
Gene Galin
Chatlist Moderator