Ninth Stage

The first post on a new website called Online Integrity is titled “Statement of Principles.” Let’s take them one by one, all bold is in the original.

• Private persons are entitled to respect for their privacy regardless of their activities online. This includes respect for the non-public nature of their personal contact information, the inviolability of their homes, and the safety of their families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted. The separateness of private persons’ professional lives should also be respected as much as is reasonable.

Maybe it’s just me but words like “entitled” and “respect” have lost a lot of their original meaning, much like how the world “liberal” has been perverted to refer to the most illiberal segments of political thought.

No one is “entitled” to anything (got life?) except to liberty and to pursue happiness as they see fit to the extent that they don’t interfere with others’ life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. And “respect” is earned.

The language “regardless of their activities online” is most troublesome. If some person neither “respects” or recognizes my “entitlement” to privacy I must still treat this person with respect and respect their entitlement?

• Public figures are entitled to respect for the non-public nature of their personal, non-professional contact information, and their privacy with regard to their homes and families.No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted.

Public figures lead public and private lives. When a Public figure invades a private person’s private life we must still respect the public figure’s private life? What, is this to protect so-called “real” journalists? Is this to protect politicians who have the power of the state and the state’s guns on their side?

• Persons seeking anonymity or pseudonymity online should have their wishes in this regard respected as much as is reasonable. Exceptions include cases of criminal, misleading, or intentionally disruptive behavior.

My name is Marc. I’m a semi-anonymous blogger. If it took you more than five minutes to find my full name you’re not trying very hard. If you are anonymous and you annoy me enough I will try to find out your real name and I will publish it. It does not annoy me enough for you to be of a different political persuasion but it might annoy me enough if you are a complete asshat.

• Violations of these principles should be met with a lack of positive publicity and traffic.

And how is this different from how the blogosphere works today?

South Knox Bubba “outed” himself to pre-empt a kind of online blackmail. Do we today respect R. Neal more or the jerk, Brian Conley, who blackmailed him?

I’m not asking for a tit for tat world but this is just feel-good jibber-jabber. It offers nothing to how online life works. Maybe it will make you happy to join up, so be it, but it will do nothing to change how things are or how people behave.

We all read many blogs and we mostly read blogs by those we respect. We respect these bloggers because they’ve earned it. I know the real names and addresses of a few anonymous and semi anonymous bloggers but I will never reveal their full/real names or addresses out of respect for the trust they’ve put in me.

Next thing you know the folks at Online Integrity will tell me that Charley Wenzel got a raw deal.

Update: This Online Integrity thing is as useful and necessary as this and this.