Balzar on Internet Anonymity
John Balzar’s poorly thought-out diatribe against Internet anonymity is astonishing and unworkable (Commentary, April 28). How many thousands of John Balzars are there in the world? Would he be willing to give out his Social Security number for distinction among them? Maybe his home address? His phone number? Who would administer this? What if someone takes his address and throws a firebomb at his home?
I look forward to seeing Balzar expand on this. Where would the bureau of Internet privacy (as opposed to anonymity) house its troops?
What darkness lurks on the Web? Is it the darkness of collapsing scaffolding, or exploding booby traps, or a mugging? Or is it the “evil” of an inconvenient virus, or hurt pride when someone with an anonymous name defeats you in a chat room debate? Do spirits leap out of your computer screen and take your soul into the darkness, or do you log on and off under your own free will? Balzar needs to reconsider his position or risk non-anonymous embarrassment.
Conder Seasholtz
Portland
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Balzar warns us that people’s behavior changes when they know they are anonymous and that anonymity is not the same as privacy. Yes, some people’s behavior changes, but I don’t think this is a moral question, as Balzar would have us believe. I believe that privacy and individual rights are at the very core of the issue.
It is just possible that in a society in which we are constantly told (subtly and overtly) how to behave and what to value (witness advertisements all around us, which, I might add, we’re not able to avoid), the Web represents the only public/social forum available that allows us to experiment with identities different from those assigned to us by society and express ideas not necessarily in fashion at the moment. To force people to disclose personal and legally identifiable selves on the Web in order to keep them from temptation to be their “worst” is to allow society to once again impinge on individual freedom of expression and further force us into rigid roles and rules of behavior.
Balzar accurately names the only safeguard necessary for those who would be “victimized” (though this is a generous use of the term when we’re referring to people who must, in order to participate in Web activities, actively choose to do so): education. This we do by teaching users not “to regard everything on the Web as you might a puff adder” but to seriously consider the source before believing the information it offers. Education, not repression and punishment (“making it harder to be anonymous, marginalizing those who try”), should be our goal.
Most regular Web users are aware that everything on the Web must be scrutinized. Personally, I don’t feel I need to be “shielded” from others’ ideas. I would much rather take responsibility for myself by viewing the Web with a critical and discerning eye. Balzar says we must tear down “barriers,” but his arguments against anonymity on the Web would erect barriers that would silence us and keep us in line. They are yet another example of the threat to individual freedom represented by the current administration, which seems determined to restrict individual rights and legislate morality.
Toni R. Randall
Cerritos
