I was reading an article at Salon yesterday, criticizing what Christopher Farah called the “furious rise of the anonyblogger,” defined as blogs authored by writers who use pseudonyms instead of their real names.
All of a sudden, I remembered that I’m an anonymous blogger and this piece was, indirectly, attacking me.
Farah’s analysis focuses on a few key criticisms, but he seems particularly troubled by the notion of accountability. Farah argues, for example, that anonymity allows writers like me to “spread gossip, make accusations and levy the most vicious of insults with impunity.”
I disagree entirely. Blogs, whether the author’s name is known or not, offer writers a forum to share his or her perspective. If readers find the writing interesting, informative, amusing, or engaging in any way, they’ll return to the site and read some more. But there are consequences for the opposite. If readers don’t like what they see, they’ll go elsewhere.
In this sense, it’s a conveniently self-policing medium. If I make a series of unsubstantiated claims that aren’t true, I’ll lose my credibility, my readers will go away, and my site will be irrelevant.
In fact, identity seems to have very little effect on accuracy. Matt Drudge runs a website with his name on it in which he shares a series of rumors. I doubt that’s his real name, but everyone knows who Drudge is. Is he occasionally wrong? Absolutely, but many of his readers keep going back. His name at the top of the site seems to have no discernable effect on the accuracy of his writing or the seriousness with which his visitors treat his work product.
Farah goes on to argue that identification is tantamount to trustworthiness. He quotes Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, as saying, “One of the things that’s going to have to become a standard for the Internet is, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to be identified. Anonymity is almost always, for the mainstream anyway, something that says, ‘Be very, very careful.'”
Oddly enough, I agree with this to a certain extent, but these concerns apply equally to anything I find on the Internet, whether I know the author’s name or not. If I read some salacious story on a blog, the veracity of the claim has very little to do with the writer’s name. Readers should, by all means, be “very, very careful” about all “news” they find online. What remains unclear to me is why attaching an unknown identity to the information somehow makes it more authentic, while pseudonyms make it questionable.
I’m left wondering why anyone would really care who I am. If you like the site and my commentary, great. I appreciate your support and I hope you’ll stop by again. If you don’t, that’s a shame, but there are plenty of other sites out there and I hope you find one to your liking.
If I re-named this site The [Insert Real Name Here] Report, would it really make any difference? I’m not famous, so my name wouldn’t help readers to rely more or less on my posts. I hope to have credibility with readers by offering accurate and reliable information. I take that seriously, and as a result, hold myself to high standards.
Farah’s last point is that writers who use pseudonyms are missing out on great opportunities because anonymity limits one’s ability to “capitalize on any success.” As Farah sees it, I can’t promote myself if no one knows who I am.
That, I suppose is true, but it’s also irrelevant. Almost no one can make money off a blog and if someone’s looking for a lucrative industry, writing on a website about current events hardly seems like the smart way to go.
That said, if any of my readers actually wanted to hire me, I would gladly give you my real name so you’d know who to make the checks out to. For you, my potential benefactors, the door is always open.