20110104.1020

During my morning reading this morning, I came across Stanley Fish's "Anonymity and the Dark Side of the Internet" in the online New York Times. I have been active in support of Net Neutrality* and free speech more generally, and so the article, which discusses the implications both of Internet anonymity and its elimination, piqued my interest.

So, too, did a number of the comments. I have not read them all as yet--there are quite a few--but they seem to speak generally to the tension between anonymity protecting those who abuse the protection (also known as trolls) and it protecting those who require that protection (whistleblowers and the like). And I can understand both arguments, certainly. It is vital, at times, to keep hidden the names of those who put forth information that needs to be put forth--the old adage about rightness and popularity comes to mind, as do the comments from poster Doc regarding Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. But Fish is right to note that the source of the information is itself part of the information--which may or may not cross over into logical fallacy, but which people often do anyway (the boy who cried wolf did, eventually, do so honestly, after all, but his final honesty did not save him). And the posters who comment that there are a lot of idiots and assholes who use the anonymity afforded by the Internet to attack others without regard to factual truth or even simple human decency are not wrong in condemning that behavior--though I would add that there is a lot of attributed, mainstream media that does the same thing and is yet held blameless...

Ahem.

It becomes a question in my mind of what must we pay to enjoy the benefit. The benefits of free speech are immense and have been readily accepted in a number of places across a fair stretch of time. To follow the Good Doctor, if trolls and asshats are the price we pay for good work and the ability to get and give information as rapidly as the Internet allows, then we are still getting the better part of the bargain.

*In this regard, it seems to me that poster Paul Turpin moves toward a fine point. Internet providers are currently protected in a manner like common carriers--if they want the control that publishers have, then they ought to have to bear the same burdens, including liability for what they put forth.