The death of the private citizen?
spectator.us
The death of the private citizen?
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Re: The death of the private citizen?
#2All of the examples in the article are people who spoke up about various things online that are clearly in the public interest. If you want to maintain a blog about a subject, if you want to speak out publicly and gain some sort of online rep, then you risk your identity being released. That's freedom of speech. If you are the author of a meme that becomes nationally significant (ie the president adopts it) then CNN will be on your lawn.
If you want to be actually anonymous, I suggest not using facebook or any other online identity tied to your real name. Get a VPN. Learn to use tor. It isn't very hard, just inconvenient. Don't post on facebook.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#3All of the examples in the article are people who spoke up about various things online that are clearly in the public interest. If you want to maintain a blog about a subject, if you want to speak out publicly and gain some sort of online rep, then you risk your identity being released. That's freedom of speech. If you are the author of a meme that becomes nationally significant (ie the president adopts it) then CNN…
That's freedom of speech.
To avoid making an incorrect assumption, and reading this in context with the rest of your post: are you saying it's "Freedom of speech" if someone has a blog or "Freedom of speech" is having your identity revealed as the owner of said hypothetical blog?
Just trying to make sure if I've read and interpreted your comment the way you're wanting it to be consumed and understood by people reading it.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#4All of the examples in the article are people who spoke up about various things online that are clearly in the public interest. If you want to maintain a blog about a subject, if you want to speak out publicly and gain some sort of online rep, then you risk your identity being released. That's freedom of speech. If you are the author of a meme that becomes nationally significant (ie the president adopts it) then CNN…
It is kind of crazy how many people can’t - or won’t - connect the dots about this. If you have an online presence you cannot be anonymous. Some of our parents, whether they know it or not, were actually pretty wise to tell millennials “everything you post online is forever.” The corollary being it will be linked back to you eventually.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#5So NYTIMES policy is to Dox their sources ? I don’t see them dox the opinion column of the famous “anonymous” government official or other tyrants.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#6All of the examples in the article are people who spoke up about various things online that are clearly in the public interest. If you want to maintain a blog about a subject, if you want to speak out publicly and gain some sort of online rep, then you risk your identity being released. That's freedom of speech. If you are the author of a meme that becomes nationally significant (ie the president adopts it) then CNN…
That's freedom of speech. To avoid making an incorrect assumption, and reading this in context with the rest of your post: are you saying it's "Freedom of speech" if someone has a blog or "Freedom of speech" is having your identity revealed as the owner of said hypothetical blog? Just trying to make sure if I've read and interpreted your comment the way you're wanting it to be consumed and understood by people readin…
Both publishing on your own blog and publishing true, not-legally-protected facts about someone who owns a blog are exercises of free speech.
It's not either/or.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's freedom of speech. To avoid making an incorrect assumption, and reading this in context with the rest of your post: are you saying it's "Freedom of speech" if someone has a blog or "Freedom of speech" is having your identity revealed as the owner of said hypothetical blog? Just trying to make sure if I've read and interpreted your comment the way you're wanting it to be consumed and understood by people readin…
Both publishing on your own blog and publishing true, not-legally-protected facts about someone who owns a blog are exercises of free speech. It's not either/or.
I assumed that was the meaning, but I'm also trying to defer to authorial intent-a bit risk averse to assume with how hot this topic has been lately and all.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#8I think that ideological groups "naturally" seek to quell all differing groups. Like dueling beehives.
In decades past they could exist peacefully, insulated by a natural inability to communicate. An inability to rub against each other.
But now we are in the age of communication. We have the internet. The sensitivity and power of the hive has grown vastly. It touches much that it never touched before. Various ideological groups are now crowding each other. Grinding cheek and jowl. A thousand new "threats" become apparent. A thousand new demands for quelling.
So now we see more of that inter-ideological friction happening.
This is not a conscious act. It's more like gravity. Gallivanting glaciers. Or weather.
Charles Fort examined this phenomenon a bit. Check out his "Book of the Damned" for more on that.
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#9Very interesting article. I'd hypothesize that this comes out of the fact that this is rooted in the idea that "the personal is political". This has led to the growing idea that not taking a stand on an issue is supporting the status quo and therefore just as political. Therefore, everyone must "pick a side". This is reflected in the attacks on people who don't condemn political movements, but refuse to support them.
While this isn't directly related to the situation with Scott Alexander, it sets the precedent that everyone is now "fair game".
Re: The death of the private citizen?
#10All of the examples in the article are people who spoke up about various things online that are clearly in the public interest. If you want to maintain a blog about a subject, if you want to speak out publicly and gain some sort of online rep, then you risk your identity being released. That's freedom of speech. If you are the author of a meme that becomes nationally significant (ie the president adopts it) then CNN…
I don't think anyone's arguing that doxxing should be illegal or that doing news-worthy things doesn't make people interested in unmasking you, but that's kinda orthogonal to the main point that, generally, doxxing someone is a shitty thing to do, especially in a context like this where it has a solid chance of doing serious harm to public discourse. It's like codes of journalistic ethics: few to no violations are actual criminal violations, yet we look disfavourably at news orgs that don't publish retractions or whatever.
Your advice is good advice for the status quo, but it highlights how fucked up the status quo is. "Just have perfect opsec and do everything through tor" is hard/inconvenient enough in practice even for tech people that the barrier to entry it poses to other groups is significant. There's your chilling effect.
So, yeah: I can get behind raising awareness around/increasing usability of anonymizing techniques, but without societal/political legs to match that tripod just tips over.