anonymusings

The Guardian is, like, totally against anonymous speech

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:45:51 -0400

In a column reeking of them-darned-kids-and-their-darned-Internet antiquarianism, The Guardian’s Jonathan Myerson dubs anonymity a force of “debase[d] debate”:

The web has become a bizarre synthesis of toilet wall and Thomas Paine

Far from being a crucial brick in the wall of free speech, online anonymity debases debate and devalues the national dialogue

Anonymity as a Market?

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:58:48 -0400

Jan Chip Chase’s thought-provoking quote below, CV Dazzle, and the German Pirate Party all prompt me to ask one question:

Should we pursue anonymity as a right, or anonymity as a market solution?

Surely there are people willing to pay for privacy, even total anonymity online. And maybe if companies see a valuable market in providing anonymity — we’ll keep you secret if you pay for it — then there might be more initiatives dedicated to doing so.

This makes me exceedingly uncomfortable. I don’t want anonymity to be a luxury for the rich or the technologically savvy.

"When everyone is known by name, the value of being known shifts to the extremes….in what..."

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:49:00 -0400

“When everyone is known by name, the value of being known shifts to the extremes….in what transaction contexts do we currently appreciate anonymity, or even pseudo-anonymity–and are we willing to pay for it?””

- Jan Chip Chase, “Let’s Agree That I Don’t Know You” (August 26, 2012)

Orlando Figes and the anonymous poison pen

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:07:18 -0400

Although Professor Orlando Figes used anonymity to publish caustic reviews of his peers online, anonymity and the right to sue for libel must be protected, writes Katie Engelhart.

[Note: this post originally appeared on www.freespeechdebate.com, a project of Oxford University.]

The case

In April 2010, a mysterious commenter, writing under the nom de plume “Historian”, began publishing caustic reviews of newly released books about Soviet history on the Amazon.co.uk website. “Historian” deemed Professor Rachel Polonsky’s work to be “dense” and “pretentious” and Professor Robert Service’s latest tome to be “rubbish”, “an awful book”. At the same time, the commenter hailed the “beautiful and necessary” work of Birbeck College Professor Orlando Figes. In private emails, circulated amongst prominent specialists in the field (including Figes), a suspicion was aired: that “Historian” was none other than Figes himself. In one of those emails, Service dubbed the reviews “unpleasant personal attacks in the old Soviet fashion”.

And so began the academy-rattling saga. Figes categorically denied the implied allegations against him and accused his rivals of libel. Soon, he instructed his lawyer to threaten legal action against Polonsky, Service and several publications that had published the historians’ conjectures. But no sooner were the legal threats unveiled than Figes’s wife, the barrister Stephanie Palmer, admitted to publishing the reviews herself. An apparently aghast Figes issued a statement indicating that he had “only just found out about this”.

But this explanation too proved short-lived. On 23 April 2010, Figes released a new statement assuming “full responsibility” for the posts and apologising to those he had accused. He later agreed to pay damages to, and cover the legal costs incurred by, Polonsky and Service.

Author opinion

As Polonsky eloquently explained in July 2010, “our cause of action was not the pseudonymous Amazon reviews themselves. Our objectives in pressing this case were to recover the considerable costs we had incurred in fending off Professor Figes’s legal threats…” This is an important distinction. Though his actions were cowardly, petty and unbefitting his distinguished academic title, Orlando Figes had the right to publish reviews of his peers: anonymously or otherwise.

But what of the legal brouhaha that followed? Polonsky and Service both criticised Figes’s hasty resort to legal means: his menacing legal notices and charges of libel. Indeed, Figes’s attempt to turn the law against his rivals appears absurd—but only because he was lying all along.

Our ninth draft principle specifies: “We should be able to counter slurs on our reputations without stifling legitimate debate.” If Figes had been telling the truth—if he was not, in fact, the pseudonymous reviewer—we might be sympathetic to his desperate efforts to protect his professional reputation. It does feel somewhat tragic when academic debate turns litigious. But the right to sue for libel, in appropriate circumstances, must be protected. Figes abused this protection; but this does not, as Service has suggested, mean that the protection is itself unjust.

In fact, Service’s post-debacle commentary is itself troubling. Service has lashed out at the “electronic media that enable the ink to flow from poison pens”. The Guardian reported that, in a private email to peers, Service noted: “Gorbachev banned [anonymity] from being used in the USSR as a way of tearing up someone’s reputation. Now the grubby practice has sprouted up here.”

I hardly think using technological or Gorbachev-style government measures to quash anonymous discussion is appropriate. Service surely understands that anonymous criticism has, in history, had its rightful place.

Embarrassing Searches & Dissociative Anonymity

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 18:13:00 -0400

This morning, I saw a tiny, reddish beetle on my windowsill, right next to my bed. My first groggy-eyed thought was: Oh hello, Nature. How are you? Thanks for bringing me a cute little friend!

And then I remembered that this is NEW YORK CITY, which means that any and all small reddish moving dots I see must be under immediate suspicion of being BEDBUGS. And bedbugs – bedbugs!!! – mean that I will have to make embarrassing phone calls to prospective weekend houseguests, suffer nightmares about teeming infestations, and rack up massive drycleaning bills. In between bouts of hyperventilation, I captured the beetle in a Ziplock bag, snapped a dozen photos of it, and started up Google Image Search to see if in fact this intruder was the harbinger of gross news. (It wasn’t.)

As with many of my Googlings, I fell down the rabbit hole of tangential but compelling side searches. Could bedbugs lay eggs in your eyeballs or ears? (Unclear.) Can other insects do so? (Yes.) What does one do if one suspects an earwig or a cockroach has invaded one’s ear? (STOP ASKING QUESTIONS ONLINE AND GO TO THE DOCTOR.) That latter line of questioning fascinated me: folks online were incredibly candid about asking questions that one might not otherwise ask a neighbor, friend, or casual passerby. Nor would one share with polite company the various implements used in coaxing a cockroach or other insect out of one’s orifices (Castor oil, in case you’re wondering). Even I had turned to Google with my entomological crisis before I called my friends — – even those that I knew had faced off with these skin-munching critters before. I was so afraid of confronting any latent stigma associated with bedbugs that an online search seemed preferable.

John Suler calls this phenomenon dissociative anonymity: the idea that you can operate in a space without any affiliation with your real name. Not only does this allow you a sense of safety – that is, the ability to ask questions freely without any fear of stigma from others – but it also allows you to convince yourself that the phenomena you discuss or search online does not really relate to you. Dissociative anonymity cuts two ways. The first is what Suler calls benign disinhibition. Benign disinhibition explains why you feel okay workshopping your Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction ideas on a message board, or sharing your deepest wishes and fears in a comment thread. Benign disinhibition explains why many loosen up online much more than they do in face-to-face interactions. Suler explains that this type of disinhibition “indicates an attempt to understand and explore oneself, to work through problems and find new ways of being.”

And then there’s toxic disinhibition, also known as The Reason That YouTube Comments Make Me Disappointed in Humanity. Toxic disinhibition, as Suler sums it up, explains why hateful, harsh, and grotesque commentary so frequently emerges in anonymous or pseudonymous spaces.

De-linking one’s identity from one’s behavior certainly lets people experiment – but that experimentation isn’t always pretty. I’m honestly not sure if online anonymity encourages more benign or toxic disinhibition, though I do understand that many calls for banning anonymity online are premised on an understanding that the repercussions from toxic disinhibition ruin the sandbox for everyone. What I am sure of, however, is that removing the possibility of dissociative anonymity troubles me. For me, that is one beauty of the Internet: the ability to play and to experiment, to question and to ask, to learn without shame. Dissociative anonymity seems to be the engine behind at least some of that – and modes of linking fixed identity and behavior online would threaten that anonymity.

Of course, one could argue that the world was an exceptionally playful, experimental, question-friendly space well before there was cyberspace-enabled dissociative anonymity. That is true. But the online space is becoming eminently more trackable — that is, it’s easy for cookies or talented folks or even untalented folks to figure out exactly where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to online — and permanently traceable. The space in which you play, experiment, and ask questions can now be preserved indefinitely, and often out of your control.

To me, this strengthens the case for dissociative anonymity alive in the online space – and not just the perception of it, but actual anonymity – for that reason. But is there a way to keep toxic disinhibition — the type that goes beyond disappointing comments and into actual harrassment — from growing alongside?

Is it still heroic if it's anonymous?

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:28:19 -0400

Anonymity = cowardice? = half-way to heroism?

Former Israeli soldiers disclose routine mistreatment of Palestinian children. (via The Guardian). “Most of the soldiers have given testimonies anonymously.”

"Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan stared at a printout of gene sequences from a man with cancer, a subject in one..."

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 11:11:37 -0400

“Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan stared at a printout of gene sequences from a man with cancer, a subject in one of his studies. There, along with the man’s cancer genes, was something unexpected — genes of the virus that causes AIDS.
It could have been a sign that the man was infected with H.I.V.; the only way to tell was further testing. But Dr. Chinnaiyan, who leads the Center for Translational Pathology at the University of Michigan, was not able to suggest that to the patient, who had donated his cells on the condition that he remain anonymous.”

- Anonymous Medicine. From today’s New York Times.

FromThe New York Times: South Korean Court Rejects Online Name Verification Law “SEOUL, South...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:41:14 -0400

FromThe New York Times:

South Korean Court Rejects Online Name Verification Law

“SEOUL, South Korea — In a major victory for free speech activists in South Korea, a top court on Thursday ruled unconstitutional a law that required Internet users to verify their identity before posting comments on major local Web sites. […]

The regulation was adopted amid widespread concern that Internet users were deluging Web sites with malicious and defamatory comments and false rumors; in a few cases, such statements were blamed in the suicides of celebrities.

But free-speech advocates condemned the rule, arguing that the government was using perceived abuses as a convenient excuse to discourage political criticism. They feared that people would censor themselves rather than provide their names, which would make it easier for the government to find and possibly punish them.”

Some points to note here:

Unlike the real-name debate in Germany (see below), the South Korean discussion was focused narrowly on libel. German officials worry about criminals using anonymity to shield their nefarious criminal activities. In South Korea, the primary target of the proposed real-name policy seems to have been the ordinary web user who hides behind anonymity to launch slanderous verbal attacks.

Also interesting is the strategy taken by the opponents: the free speech activists. Their main grievance here was not that government was censoring web users - but rather that government policies would encourage self-censorship.

The issue of self-censorship is also on the table in Myanmar, where the regime just ended direct media censorship.

"Now that big data is becoming the norm, we need to build anonymity into our society, not out of our..."

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:57:03 -0400

““Now that big data is becoming the norm, we need to build anonymity into our society, not out of our society. The ability to stay anonymous and choose anonymity is crucial for creativity and social development.””

- Swedish Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter, to Reuters.

Anonymity: a human right?

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:54:10 -0400

If Germany’s especially-litigious Pirate Party has its way, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will soon be forced to rule on whether anonymity is a human right - or, more specifically, part of the right to private life enshrined under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Reuters reports:

“This latest suit follows a February ruling by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court that it was constitutional for telecommunication providers to demand personal data to set up accounts.

Some European Union countries such as Germany, Denmark, and France, have outlawed anonymous pre-paid cards to prevent their use in criminal activities, but the Pirate Party says that stifles a citizen’s right to privacy and free speech.”

There once was a word

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 05:53:00 -0400

I’m no linguist. Yet it occurs to me that our discussion of anonymity might benefit from a little phonological injection.

The noun “anonymous” comes from the Greek anonymos, or “without name.”

But—as the literary scholar Anne Ferry recounts far more thoroughly than I—the English adjective itself was only born in the late 16th century. Then, and for centuries, the word was used sparingly. And its meaning was limited: used to describe a nameless piece of writing or an unnamed author.

It was only in the twentieth century that we got the corresponding noun: “anonymity.”

Linguists will point out that adjectival nouns—like nouns formed by slapping the suffix ity onto an adjective—are special beasts. Ferry writes that the seemingly humdrum acquisition of an ity can be the marking of much broader cultural shifts:

“… when such nouns are formed, something new in the language “has come into existence which did not exist before”… These nouns, then, can be powerfully compact signals of cultural changes… Like vast numbers of other words englished in the sixteenth century, anonymous was imported to serve a newly felt need.”

That need was to establish authorship concretely, where before the presence/absence of a named author was inconsequential. Importantly, this took place amidst a boom in the publication of anonymous poetry volumes in Europe.

But to be sure, the 20th century lexical shift—adjective —> noun—also spurred a substantive one. The meaning of the words loosened. “Anonymous” and “anonymity” spread from the confines of authorship to the fluffier domain of identity.

Here’s where our next discussion will take off.

“Matisyahu Revels in Anonymity Without Signature...

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 05:46:00 -0400

“Matisyahu Revels in Anonymity Without Signature Beard” via Rolling Stone.

Analog move…

"Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists..."

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:23:44 -0400

“Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game without broadcasting the children’s faces to the world, our face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube.”

- YouTube Announcement, “Face Blurring: When Footage Requires Anonymity,” (July 18, 2012).

This Is What The Future Looks Like (?!)

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:15:00 -0400

Terrified of facial recognition technology? CV Dazzle will help you avoid it. :

CV Dazzle is camouflage from computer vision (CV). It is a form of expressive interference that combines makeup and hair styling (or other modifications) with face-detection thwarting designs.

The name is derived from a type of camouflage used during WWI, called Dazzle, which was used to break apart the gestalt-image of warships, making it hard to discern their directionality, size, and orientation. Likewise, the goal of CV Dazzle is to break apart the gestalt of a face, or object, and make it undetectable to computer vision algorithms, in particular face detection.

Sounds great! I’m just not sure that this look is office-appropriate just yet, though:

Late-night musings: Facial Recognition Technology

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:06:00 -0400

A vapid thought:

Could Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” feature finally catalog of all of my photo-bombs? Because I’m not sure I want to know.

A serious thought:

What I do want to know is to what extent and with what frequency Facebook allows law enforcement to use or to access its data repository, particularly given this:

The scope of government-driven biometrics data collection is well-matched by private-sector collection. Facebook, which uses face recognition by default to scan all photos uploaded to its site, states that its users uploaded more than 300 million photos every day in the three months ending on March 31, 2012. And Face.com, which developed Facebook’s face recognition tools and was recently acquired by the company, stated in March that it had indexed 31 billion face images…Private companies are using biometric identification for everything from prevening unauthorized access to computers and corporate facilities to preventing unauthorized access to the gym

Testimony of Jennifer Lynch to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law (July 18, 2012).

Senator Al Franken does not like facial recognition technology

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:48:00 -0400

Senator Al Franken does not like facial recognition technology

Traceability and Purpose

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:40:00 -0400

ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning “without a name” or “namelessness”.

I rarely think of anonymity as a state of being without a name. As The Historian knows, I immediately conceive of anonymity as a state in which one’s name is obscured — that is, a conscious decision not to use one’s name. Part of that is because I meandered into the Wide World of Anonymity via the defamation and cyberSLAPP legal universe, where chatter about anonymous speech revolves around whether we should be revealing the identities of commenters who would probably rather not be unmasked.

And so I tend to think of anonymity as deeply related to traceability — a desire to remain anonymous, in my mind, is often associated with willful choices to conceal tracks that circle back to the Named You. But this logic lends itself so easily to the public damnation of Anonymity = Bad. It tracks the anti-privacy logic: if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. And that’s simply just not the case. As Terry Eagleton writes in the London Review of Books:

A work may come unsigned because who wrote it is not thought to be all that important. Some medieval art is a case in point. What does it matter who is praising God, as long as he gets praised? The oldest form of literary anonymity is divine inspiration. There is only one author, and which mundane mouthpiece he selects to reveal his glory is neither here nor there.

It’s so easy to infer purpose from anonymity. What’s terrifying is that our assumptions of why one would desire anonymity dictates so much of how we receive and frame policy choices around that form of speech. The truth is that there really are a thousand reasons not to sign your name on something you create — laziness, experimentation, privacy, safety concerns, reputation, forgetfulness, or even a desire to hide. Who knows?

"Literature tries to be unsigned."

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:09:24 -0400

““Literature tries to be unsigned.””

- E.M. Forster

Onward: "The Age of Personality"

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 13:44:58 -0400

In 1930, The Nation magazine ran an article entitled “The Cult of Anonymity.” The piece followed a small group of Parisian writers who had pledged to publish their work without names: “to curb the exploitation of personalities” and to establish “the art as an ideal, not the ego.” A few years earlier, the British novelist E.M Forster’s pamphlet “Anonymity: An Enquiry” had lashed out a professional authors’ “insistence on personality,” and called for a return to a past when anonymity was celebrated. Almost forty years later, French philosophers rekindled the debate. In 1969, Michel Foucault asked, “What is an Author?” His more bombastic contemporary, Roland Barthes, proclaimed the named author dead on arrival.

It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.

Up through the 17th century, authoring books was a less-than-classy enterprise. A published novel? How uncouth! For that reason, many works were published anonymously or pseudonymously. But for me, what is more interesting is that these books were printed, purchased, read and critically reviewed—even though readers had no information about the works’ provenance. In other words, anonymity did not negate credibility. Authorship was not a condition for authority.

The (very few) historians working in this area speak of a “transformation of readers’ expectations” around 1800: some time shortly after the French Revolution, when the modern publishing industry was in its infancy. By 1850, books needed authors. They still do. And it is this that our French philosophes were reacting against. If anonymity was obsolete by the 19th century, it was remembered with nostalgia in the 20th.

What of now? Once again, the publishing industry is transforming. And we seem torn: insistent on an elusive right to express ourselves anonymously, even as we bask in the heydays of the “age of personality.” Anonymous ‘mommy bloggers’ get cult followings. But I tend to scrutinize the Wikipedia bios of journalists before I make a judgment on their work.

Identity matters, and it doesn’t. What is sure is that our obsession with provenance—our tendency to ingest an author and his/her words hand in hand—is a relatively new invention. And one I’ll continue to explore.

Quote

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:34:59 -0400

“Today authorship and authority have become inextricably linked, and literature without a responsible agent identified is like an artifact that turns up in the saleroom lacking a decent provenance. Both anonymity and pseudonymity have become suspect behavior.” - Pat Rogers, New Literary History 33.2 (2002)