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Will We Share Your Names?
Mikejb wrote in — after today's show about Referendum Signatures — about his personal stake in the issue:
I'm no longer comfortable signing petitions because I am afraid of people who violently disagree. I am physically unable to protect myself from such people. I am worried just typing this in right now.
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This is a difficult issue, and, generally, I value open and honest communication. However, people behave differently online then they do in public and I know that my opinions, which are intended to challenge people's accepted ideas, are not always going to be popular with everyone. If we were all meeting in person for a group discussion I might be more willing reveal my identity because so much of communication and how we recognize each other as people is revealed through body language and voice tone, but my priority is to freely share my thoughts in a constructive way and I'm not willing to have to think twice for fear of some kind of potential reprisal.
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Part One
Like OregonSean, I too value open and honest communication -- to a point.
I write under the veil of anonymity because many times I present views that are different from mine. Sometimes I choose sarcasm, sometimes I rant, and sometimes I strive to be more accurate or ask questions pertinent to the show at hand.
I'm leary of providing my real name because content can stay on the Internet forever. When I Google myself I find the weirdest references; things that I'd forgotten I'd been involved in. It's disconcerting. I have little or no ability to edit or remove personal information from the Internet without jumping through heaps of hoops. Anonymity provides a helpful layer.
I don't think I would change what I write if I used my real name, but I would be prone to edit myself, become more politically acceptible, and supply generic fare.
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Part Two
I'm somewhat concerned about reprisals. Employers or others can access TOL and use the content to inform their decisions, etc. I doubt I would contribute to TOL if I had to use my real name because it could be more troublesome than it's worth. Call me paranoid or self important but to me technology is boon and bane:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/landlord-sues-tenant-after-tweet-about-moldy-apartment.ars
One of my biggest TOL talking points is this: technology is often implemented before its implications are fully understood. Cell phones are immensely useful and revolutionary. However, people driving while talking are quite dangerous. Boon and bane.
Same thing with the Internet. It is immensely useful or it can be immensely harmful. Repairing one's identity because it has been compromised on the Internet is time consuming, expensive, frustrating, etc.
That TOL is the first show I've ever contributed to is considerable. I was born with the ethos that , "A fool and his face are found in a public place". This means I tend to stay away from public rallies and protests because I have no control over mass gatherings which can quickly and stupidly get out of control.
When I contribute to TOL I violate my personal rule of keeping my opinions to myself. One could ask, "Who cares what I think?" But with others sharing what they think I gain insights into trends and topics. I learn what issues you think are important to produce on the show. So my experiment with public dialog continues satisfactorily.
Finally, I don't think my full name is as pertinent as the points of view I'm trying to express. I will do my best to be respectful of TOL's guidelines by toe-ing the line but not going Serena Williams on it. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. It appears that Serena didn't foot fall the line and that the base line judge made an incorrect call.) I expect TOL to warn or ban me if I violate the integrity of the community.
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Comments are now closed.
And then he asked me a direct question:
The short answer is: no. The long answer is more complicated. First of all, we don't even have most of your real names to begin with, so even if we wanted to share them with our audience, we couldn't. (Did you go to high school with "My Dog Ate My Homework"?)
And then there's the question of trust. When you signed onto this community, you did so under the assumption that we wouldn't distribute your personal information. We intend to honor that trust. (You can read OPB's station-wide privacy policy here.)
But the really complicating factor is that, in general, I wish you'd all share your names on your own accord. And in fact I'm on the record stating this at the very beginning of this show's life. In our very first post, called Real Names Rule, I wrote:
But I'll close with the simple answer again, just to be clear: if you don't use your real name, we're certainly not going to use it either!