This week, the New York Times interviewed Tyler Blevins, aka Ninja, the popular Fortnite streamer. In the casual perusing of the article that I did, one statement kind of stuck with me. It seems indicative of the political issue we are seeing come to the fore.
Ninja talks"I don’t think it’s gaming. I think it’s internet culture. People are behind the screen. They say what they want and can get away with it. You have complete anonymity. Your information and data are precious and should remain private, but it sucks that there are kids who can say racist things and be incredibly aggressive and threatening to women online and have zero repercussions."
This for me brings up a number of conflicting emotions and issues facing politics and people in general. One is the ability to be anonymous period. Being at the forefront of any controversial issue in this day and age=death threats. That's just the way it is. Also, doxxing and swatting are very real threats that have generated whole discussions of their own.
But some people have pushed back in favor of anonymity on the web. The argument for it is that whistleblowers and journalists, as well as citizen journalists, use that as a tool to protect themselves, and it is essential for a check on governments.
Ultimately, I really don't know where I fall on this issue. I can see the arguments on both sides. I think it will come down to the individual hosters of forums, the Twitters of the world. Will you allow anonymity, or must you link your account to your person?
Reply #3: 01-31-2021. Steven Moore: Is anonymity helpful for political discourse?
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting concept to bring up. I understand where Ninja is coming from when he expresses annoyance at the ability of people to say terrible things while hiding behind a wall of anonymity. However, as you mentioned, it is important for people like journalist, whistle blowers and others to be able to use anonymity as a source of protection against those that might not want them to have a voice. I think that the negative aspects of online discourse come with the territory. Anonymous publishing has been around for centuries, and it likely should not be halted simply because it is now easier to be misused by the general public. Furthermore, I would wager that Ninja would be more in favor of anonymous online activities if the people doing so were expressing opinions and attitudes that he agreed with. Not to say that people saying terrible things is something that should be endorsed, but people often are much more supportive of freely speaking when what is being said in congruent with their own opinions.
I definitely see what you're saying with the argument of anonymity - but I think I lean the oposite direction of where it seems you did. I'm a consequentialist at heart, so the benefits of having journalism, reporting, media exposure that can be reported anonymously, and therefore people can be whistlblowers and have a degree of protection.
ReplyDeleteIt will keep all parties honest in the future, and while SWATTING is definitely an issue, as is Doxxing, I think being able to hold those in power to task anonymously vastly outweighs the negatives of if we didn't have that ability.