I have had a number of people ping me about my thoughts on the response to the Kathy Sierra situation, as she details here.
First and foremost, I hope Sierra starts writing again. I enjoyed her ideas and her optimism.
That said, I am not going to run into a tirade defending free speech, although I believe in it. (I also believe in my ability to not listen.) This blog is not about politics, but, if you want such a defense, this post over at Emergent Chaos is a good start.
Now, if you don’t buy into free speech, then you may as well stop reading now; however, if you do buy into it, well, lets talk a little about the rhetoric flying around the blog world. I guess this post, which is Sierra discussing her future options, works to that end.
2) “Ghost write” for someone or something else. I got myself into the Technorati Top 50, I could help someone else (if it’s for the right reasons) raise their readership.
3) Create a fake persona and write as that fake person. Unfortunately, almost everything I do has a look and style, and I don’t think the quality of my writing is suddenly going to improve, so it would be pretty obvious that it was me. Still… a rape fantasy about a fake person who lives thousands of miles from where I do would not effect me as deeply or as personally as when the dream/imagery is about the real me I don’t like this idea as much because anonymity–NOT Owning Your Own Words–is one of the biggest contributors to the problems that have driven me and thousands of others off their blogs or other online communities.
Now, I realize some in the blogosphere have called speaking anonymously an act of cowardice – the “say it to your face” tough guys out there – and even Sierra seems to lament considering pseudonymity as an option. But, step back for a moment and realize something – these tough guys are in positions of power, which makes it is easy for them to proclaim a “say it to your face” world. Someone subject to power rather than wielding it may not be in such an easy position to speak their mind – they have to fear what those with power over them will do to them if they speak. They could be ostracized. They could be fired. They could be beaten. They could be jailed. They could be killed. Pseudonymity and anonymity provide a means for people to speak without such fears. It gave Sierra’s attackers a way to be threatening, to be sure, but it also could have given Sierra herself a way to speak without fear.
Which is to say, free speech does not only apply to the powerful. Such a thing is not free speech, it is restricted speech. No, free speech applies to everyone. And, pseudonymity and anonymity provide tools to help make that possible, even under the most tyrannical of regimes, whether a parent, a boy/girlfriend, or a government. (I just don’t see how one can say they believe in free speech and yet not defend anonymity and pseudonymity with regards to speech – that seems a contradiction.)
Sierra wonders about how many bloggers have been driven away by anonymous attackers, but I wonder the opposite – how many blogs out there have only come to be because of pseudonymity? I’d wager far more blogs exist because of pseudonymity than have been driven away by it. I’d bet some of the most repected bloggers out there are posting under pseudonyms, just like some of the most respected cypherpunks post under pseudonyms.
And, since I mention pseudonyms in the same sentence with respect, it should be noted that nyms are identities. They can own their words. They can build reputations. They can even be held accountable in many ways. This is not a hypothetical – eBay, Slashdot, the USA founders use(d) nyms.
As to the “bloggers’ code of conduct“, I will say only this (at the risk of my blogospere neighbors labeling me “unamerican,” I mean, “uncivil”) – I defer to the year and a half of content here to provide the reputation, and, by virtue, code of conduct, for this blog. We have said stupid things, smart things, incoherent things, irrelevant things, and just plain annoying things, and we will continue to do so. Email-to-blog transitions have been covered. So have comments. And that says it all.
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