Double-Sided Anonymity

by emptywheel

At her address to the Bloggers Caucus at the MDP Convention two weeks ago, Governor Granholm admitted to being a regular lurker on Michigan Liberal, MI's best lefty blog. She proved it, too, as she went around the room calling handles from people's nametags. You're wizardkitten! And you're Brainwrap! she called out, as she went around the room. She had a confused look in her face when she met me, presumably because she has met me several times in the last few months in my role as Vice Chair of my county party, and in all those meetings, we never talked about blogging, nor did I identify myself as emptywheel. Before she left, we all joked that, whenever she wanted it, she could have the handle "Michigan One," so she could post on her own.

The governor of Michigan gets it. She gets that we use handles to blog. And she understands the joy of, for the first time, placing a face to a handle and--as often as not--a real name. And that marks her
as someone who understands the community of blogging.

Garance is still working on that concept. She now admits the long history of pseudonymous writing in our great Republic, and seems to accept the notion of hosting a pseudonymous blog.

I have nothing against people using pseudonymns to write in comment threads (except when, as in Lee's case, they're writers working under the expectation that they always take public responsibility for their work), or who author blogs while cloaking their identities. It's a free country, and pseudonymous speech has a long tradition in American politics and a strong legal basis for continued protection. However, I was and remain disturbed by the way newspapers and magazines quote from bloggers and commenters whose identities they do not even make an attempt to determine.

But she uses the embarrassment of Lee Siegel as an opportunity to campaign against a completely unrelated issue, quoting bloggers without first knowing their real identity. She does so, too, by invoking another only partly related issue, supporters of campaigns advocating for those campaigns while writing under pseudonym.

Before I deal with these issues, though, I'd like to turn to this concept she introduces, "Double-Sided Anonymity." What a remarkable phrase!! Because, first of all, we're not talking about anonymity at all. We're talking about pseudonymity, blogging under a consistent identity, albeit one identified by a different name than the ones your parents gave you. I guess Garance uses the term to refer to the double blindness that results when a newspaper cites from a blogger without first ascertaining her identity. But it's misleading. Presumably, a newspaper isn't going to cite from a blogger--except to give a story blog color--unless that blogger has an established and consistent identity. If someone were to quote me, they be quoting emptywheel, a voice that has been around for at least three years, one with a track record in certain areas. Want to quote a blogger who spends an inordinate amount of time reading filings from the Plame case? You can be sure you've got a credible source by quoting me, even if you don't know me as Marcy Wheeler. Garance makes this threat into a much more dangerous one than it is by conflating (and not for the first time) pseudonymity and anonymity.

So lets go back to her argument.

First, she's using what Siegel did to attack two unrelated practices. But what Siegel did is different (and fits the narrow definition of sock puppetry). Siegel broke the rules precisely because he tried to sustain multiple identities online, in what might properly be called pseudo-schizophrenia. Even so, as Siegel and others have found out, it's very difficult to maintain pseudo-schizophrenia, precisely because the way human identity works. It turns out that our writing style marks our identity as surely as our birth name. And since those who try sock puppetry are generally those with fragile egos and weaker writing styles, they tend to reveal their true identity either because they continue to fight the same battles as they do under their real name (Ezra first identified Siegel, for example, when Siegel mentioned his mother), or they use the same writing style. You'd have to be a great writer to get away with sock puppetry in a true blog community (imagine James Wolcott with a handful of sock puppets--that would be scary), but chances are, if you're that good of a writer, you don't need to resort to such tools.

Then Garance talks about the danger of newspapers citing pseudonymous bloggers without ascertaining their identity. Maybe I'm missing the big influx of blog-pundits being cited by the dead tree news. But as I said, chances are if they're citing a blogger, they're citing her pseudonymously, which is different. And, as Duncan Atrios points out, there are so many existing problems with anonymous (as distinct from pseudonymous) sourcing in this day and age, I don't understand how Garance judges this to be the overwhelmingly threatening one.

As for the general issue, yes quoting anonymous blog commenters is generally a stupid practice, though journalists/editors and producers rarely bother to let their readers/viewers know the relevant financial connections and conflicts of interest of those who write op-eds or appear on their television shows (let alone for those who do "man in the street"-type interviews, which is really more of what we're talking about here). Yes, disclosure of this stuff is always good but in the hierarchy of Problems With Journalism the dreaded Anonymous Blog Commenter is really just a matter for a blogger ethics panel. There's rarely any vetting of the kind Garance imagines for bloggers anywhere else in the universe.

After all, if someone were to quote me, emptywheel, for an article on, say, Jennifer Granholm, it'd be simple as pie to find out my biases, even easier than it would be to find the biases that come with being a county officer for the Democratic party. It'd be a lot harder to expose the biases in the SAOs who loaded Judy Miller up with bogus claims (until Judy's identity itself began to ruin the credibility of her anonymous sources). And a lot more dangerous.

Which leaves us with Garance's threat that a Congressional staffer blogs pseudonymously to support her boss. Perhaps I'm naive, but I really wonder if Garance knows what she's talking about. It seems to me, the folks pushing candidates at DKos fall into one of several categories:

• Committed volunteers blogging on their own time
• Bloggers not blogging on issues related to their candidates
• People whose identity quickly becomes identified with their candidates, in which case their biases remain clear

The thing is, if someone is blogging about a candidate consistently enough to get even one diary recommended at DKos, chances are their pseudonymous identity is thoroughly marked as a candidate supporter. If a blogger is doing drive-by posting, she won't have enough credibility to attract any notice within the blogging community--much less the notice of the press at large. The nature of human identity is such that its very difficult to maintain the fictions that Garance is so fearful of over the long term. And odds are good that, before that happened, you'd have revealed your identity to a few select people anyway.

But it all comes down to a misunderstanding about two things--the difference between pseudonymity and anonymity, and the nature of credibility in the blogging community. People who win credibility in the blogosphere do it by maintaining a consistent identity over time. That identity reveals more biases than newspapers currently do when they name someone by a birth name. And the identity of that blogger is vouched, as often as not, by her relationship and consistent ties to the community.

Comments

[emptypockets]

On blogging and community: the Times carries a column today suggesting that, despite bloggers' cries, that journalism's not dead (it's only a-sleeping) and goes on to say that real community is formed by city newspapers -- not on blogs:

To give them a flavor of the craft, or at least a sense of how it has been perceived, [dean of the new CUNY journalism school Stephen] Shepard is showing them journalism-themed movies once a week. He began on Thursday with the original 1931 version of “The Front Page.” His future lineup includes “Deadline U.S.A.” If you believe in newspapers, as many of the students clearly do, that 1952 film can make the heart skip a beat.

Humphrey Bogart plays the tough editor of a newspaper that is going under (sound familiar?) but not without a fight. He crusades against a mobster who had a woman killed. Her immigrant mother gives the editor evidence of the mobster’s guilt.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” he asks her.

“Police?” she says. “I do not know police. I know newspaper. This newspaper. For 31 years, I know this paper. I come to America. I wish to be good citizen. How to do this? From newspaper.”

Perhaps someday a screenwriter — he may even be a former journalism student — will have a character say the same thing about Web logs.

Probably not any time soon, though.

I was thinking of writing on this but it sort of writes itself -- how many times on a blog have you seen someone come in with a personal problem and be inundated (sometimes overwhelmed) with help, including advice, legal counsel, and financial aid? How many times have you seen someone do that in the NY Times?

Anonymity (or pseudonymity) doesn't seem to be hurting community bonding. I won't go so far as to say it strengthens it -- but there is a stronger sense of community in most blogs I read than the apartment building where I live.

[emptywheel]

~pockets

One argument I made when Garance asked me in Vegas about why I blogged pseudonymously even though I was willing to appear on CSPAN under my own name is that people tend to develop characters associated with their names--and that this has been true throughout history (a lot of the feuilletons I researched in grad school were pseudonymous and would develop little stories about the pseudonymity). Writing as emptywheel, I am generally perceived to be a kind of rational zen male. Would I write different things if I blogged under my real name? Maybe. But the perception would be different. And, except when I'm blogging in close proximity to you, it's easier to remember/identify me when I blog as emptywheel.

[emptypockets]

if one really want to stretch the point, one could think of other examples where one of the first steps in forming a community is participants naming themselves -- picking your own name gives you a claim on your identity that you may not get with the name you're born with (or given in the first couple weeks, anyway).

I'm thinking in particular of modern Israel, where people moving there often renamed themselves in Hebrew or Hebrew-derived names, shedding their Russian or Polish surnames behind them. There too a self-renaming (I guess I shouldn't call it "self-christening" if it's Israel) was part of joining a developing community.

[antec]

An anonymous blogger just died over at another blog.

[emptywheel]

That's not a stretch, ~pockets. Again, going back to the stuff I did in academia, one of the reasons the feuilletons worked so well is because they were written in a language completely different from that "above the line." The best feuilletonists always played with the language of the street, celebrating it with almost poetic grace. That meant that a lot more people could read it as "their" language.

I think naming is somewhat similar. By picking a name you pick an avatar and, to some degree, perform that avatar. It's a language and self-identity you choose yourself, which makes it more active.

[mainsailset]

This is an intriguing discussion to say the least. It took me back to high school where we had an assignment to discuss what was more important, civil rights or property rights? The discussion went on, well, forever.
FYI, have you seen the clip that The Nation is breaking a story sometime today of what Valerie P's actual role was at the CIA? They indicate it's taken from the yet to be released Hubris by Isakoff slated for release later this week.

[prostratedragon]

I believe I've heard that in some traditional Native American cultures it's common to be renamed a few time during one's life, as new functions, signal achievements, or epochal gaffes change one's relationship to the rest of the community.

A consistency of my persona: movie references. I hope Prof. Shepard is planning to show Meet John Doe to his class, just so they know that the heroism of the journalist is not inevitable. Ace in the Hole or A Face in the Crowd make some of the same points, too.

[mk]

The Nation excerpt is up here.

[Redshift]

Perhaps if I changed my handle to "Senior Administration Official" Garance would have less of a problem with it?

[jonnybutter]

In my imaginary opinion, 'Garance Franke-Ruta's' writing voice is at least as 'constructed' as any other, notwithstanding the fact that that is her 'real' name - in her case, that of a rather humorless, literalistic, anti-zen, parody of what a male supposedly sounds like. I'm sure she's much more complex and interesting in person. Sorry to sound condesending, and I don't particularly have a bone to pick with her (although I do find her to be a bit of a scold), but she's kinda asking for it. It takes a pretty stubborn obtuseness to confuse pseudonymity and anonymity. Smoke from another (more interesting) fire.

[emptywheel]

Redshift

Actually, if you didn't have such a great, consistent ID already built up, that'd be great!!

jonnybutter

I don't really have a beef with her in general, either. But when someone who gets paid because she can use her real name begrudges those who don't get paid because they can't use their real name, you begin to wonder.

[kim]

Interesting post EW, liked your earlier one as well. My first experience with anonymous blogging really occurred reading a sci-fi book by Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed I think, where the main characters were dissidents blogged with ancient philosophers' names. Your feuilleton work sounds pretty interesting BTW.

I don't know if the conventions have changed/developed over the past few years, or I'm just clueless, but I've never considered using only one handle for the web. Always figured someone could ID me if they really wanted to, maybe not too interested in developing a "brand" either (though I seem to have a small one going at JOM).

Also basically clueless until recently about such things as "sock puppets" and "trolls."

[windje]

If I remember my American history, one of the first anonymous pamphleteers (the 1770's version of blogging) was a guy who published under the pseudonym Publius, and the collection of those writings is now known as the Federalist Papers.

windje

[pax]

Interesting discussion.

There is another reason for posting anonymously. Some of us have very unique names. If you were to type my name into a search engine you would come up with one page of results. You would know where I was formerly employed, you would know I had my house remodeled, hence my address, you would be able to access the letters to the editor I have written. I also live in one of the reddest states in the country. I don't feel comfortable posting on any site, and I do from time to time post comments on a number of sites, using the name my parents saw fit to give me.

A unique name is both a bane and a blessing, depending on the circumstances.

[William Ockham]

pax,

I know exactly what you mean. I have a constructed name (my wife and I hyphenated our names when we married) that is absolutely unique (as far as I and Google know, no one outside of my immediate family shares our last name). Since I work in the technology field and have a work related blog, I want people who search for my name to turn that up, not my political ramblings. There is a lot of interesting work in "identity management" that could be applied here, but the geek community never sees the historical precedents for our work. As a History and English major in college, that frustrates me no end. I work with people who think that nothing that happened before the advent of the Web is applicable to our field.