Calling Out the Cowards
I'm sure most people will have heard about Canadian sf author Peter Watts being beaten and arrested by US border guards whilst trying to return to Canada. nwhyte has posted extensive links with details, including Peter's first-person account and update.
Even with my natural caution of "let's get as full a story as possible" I am appalled at this. I've dealt with Peter online and whilst he is not the sort of person to suffer fools gladly there is no way that, as papersky put it, 'failing to cringe sufficiently' invites violent assault and what sounds like malicious arrest.
But if I am dismayed at what has happened to Peter then I am aghast at some of the comments in the various fora where this is being discussed. It seems that there are an awful lot of people out there - even in the readership of communities like BoingBoing - who are ready and willing to adopt a supinely compliant role in the face of abuses of authority. Some would have you believe that as a citizen you have to accept any order given to you by someone in uniform, and that a good beating is a perfectly natural response to any hesitation to do so. Furthermore, plenty of people who don't know Peter from Adam seem all too willing to attack his honesty and motives on no more basis that an apparent instinct to side with jackboot authoritarianism.
And you know what? Pretty much without exception everyone doing this is posting anonymously or under a pseudonym. There's a term for this: utter moral cowardice.
I accept that there are powerful arguments why online anonymity can be important. If you are discussing abuse, or sensitive personal matters, or whistleblowing, or complaining about someone with the power to hurt you, then yes, anonymity is a valuable shield. But it is a shield, not a sword. To use the anonymity of the Internet as a wall to hide behind whilst making baseless, scurrilous and utterly unwarranted accusations demonstrates nothing more than abject lack of any sort of moral courage or integrity. If you want to say something nasty about someone who is in no position whatsoever to have any comeback on you, then damn well say it under your own name.
Of course, these people won't, because they're weak and cowardly. But I think that if you run a public blog then it's fair to set a policy about commenting: anonymity is inappropriate if you are attacking the integrity of someone who has no means nor motive for reprisals against you, and such comments, if anonymous or pseudonymous, are fair game for disemvowelling or removal.
(To clarify: if someone has a well-established reputation, even under a name unconnected with their own, then they are not really anonymous in the sense that I am talking about because they have a reputation that they can lose through being childish or abusive. I am talking about the drive-by commentors who have no such credibility to invest.)
EDIT I would hope it would be evident from the above that I won't stand for comments that are abusive or casually dismissive of others posting here. If you disagree with someone, explain why.
Even with my natural caution of "let's get as full a story as possible" I am appalled at this. I've dealt with Peter online and whilst he is not the sort of person to suffer fools gladly there is no way that, as papersky put it, 'failing to cringe sufficiently' invites violent assault and what sounds like malicious arrest.
But if I am dismayed at what has happened to Peter then I am aghast at some of the comments in the various fora where this is being discussed. It seems that there are an awful lot of people out there - even in the readership of communities like BoingBoing - who are ready and willing to adopt a supinely compliant role in the face of abuses of authority. Some would have you believe that as a citizen you have to accept any order given to you by someone in uniform, and that a good beating is a perfectly natural response to any hesitation to do so. Furthermore, plenty of people who don't know Peter from Adam seem all too willing to attack his honesty and motives on no more basis that an apparent instinct to side with jackboot authoritarianism.
And you know what? Pretty much without exception everyone doing this is posting anonymously or under a pseudonym. There's a term for this: utter moral cowardice.
I accept that there are powerful arguments why online anonymity can be important. If you are discussing abuse, or sensitive personal matters, or whistleblowing, or complaining about someone with the power to hurt you, then yes, anonymity is a valuable shield. But it is a shield, not a sword. To use the anonymity of the Internet as a wall to hide behind whilst making baseless, scurrilous and utterly unwarranted accusations demonstrates nothing more than abject lack of any sort of moral courage or integrity. If you want to say something nasty about someone who is in no position whatsoever to have any comeback on you, then damn well say it under your own name.
Of course, these people won't, because they're weak and cowardly. But I think that if you run a public blog then it's fair to set a policy about commenting: anonymity is inappropriate if you are attacking the integrity of someone who has no means nor motive for reprisals against you, and such comments, if anonymous or pseudonymous, are fair game for disemvowelling or removal.
(To clarify: if someone has a well-established reputation, even under a name unconnected with their own, then they are not really anonymous in the sense that I am talking about because they have a reputation that they can lose through being childish or abusive. I am talking about the drive-by commentors who have no such credibility to invest.)
EDIT I would hope it would be evident from the above that I won't stand for comments that are abusive or casually dismissive of others posting here. If you disagree with someone, explain why.