If you haven't seen it, this article is quite interesting.





I would say the second quote denotes the problem - the "freedom" to disassociate your actions from yourself leads to a lot of problems.

'cept that I have several facebook accounts, and the one that I use most does not use my real name.

There are important differences between: 1) a true real-world identity (which links you to a job or school, family members, a home address, financial institutions, etc); 2) a stable pseudonym with which you have created a reputation; and 3) non-recourse anonymous speech.

Before and during the American Revolution, James Madison and others wrote as "Publius", in part to prevent recriminations and arrest. This was a stable pseudonym, which built a reputation. The same can be said for Dr. Seuss or Flann O'Brian.

Recall always that while (in the U.S.) you have a right to speak anonymously, you do not have a right to prevent someone* from striving to discover your identity, succeeding, and revealing it.

(*) Depending on the circumstances, possibly including government actors.

Yet, this is exactly what you campaign for when you insist that your real name, Jeffrey Peters, be disassociated from your handle, Ottava Rima.

How can you possibly square a demand for "no outing" with your supposition that freedom leads to problems?

Isn't it possible that people don't want other people who share a small and distinct portion of your lives, e.g. bosses, from finding out everything about your entire online life?

I'm not sure that there's a huge distinction between (1) and (2). Suppose that during Dr. Seuss' lifetime, hardly anyone had known his real name. Suppose that someone published a newspaper article alleging that he was a child molester, that he only wrote his books to help him gain victims, and that he gave huge donations to NAMBLA (if it existed then). That would have been serious defamation, and could have caused him a lot of damage in terms of lost income. Would it have been much worse to use his real name?