Anonymous Bloggers
We recently included several winning Top Question Tuesday selections on an interactive poll. Stay tuned to this blog as we’ll be releasing the results over the next several weeks!
One question asked whether respondents agreed or disagreed that anonymous internet bloggers should be required to reveal their identity if they post defamatory or untrue statements about another person on a website. Overall, 64% of the sample agreed that bloggers should be required to reveal their identity, while 24% disagreed and 12% were not sure.
Interesting patterns were found when examining the results by age group, ideology, and a few other demographics. Young people between 18 and 29 were the least likely to agree, with 36% of this group agreeing that bloggers should be required to reveal their identity if they post defamatory material. In comparison, 63% of those between 30 and 49, 75% of those between 50 and 64, and 83% of those over 65 agreed. The area where respondents lived also had an effect, with 75% of those living in small cities and 70% of those living in suburbs agreeing, compared to 56% of those living in large cities and 62% of those living in rural areas. Examining results by ideology yielded particularly interesting results , with 71% of moderates agreeing, 63% of both liberals and conservatives agreeing, and 58% of progressives and 52% of very conservatives also agreeing. Income, education, and gender had negligible effects.
Do you agree or disagree that anonymous bloggers should sometimes be required to reveal their identity? Why would moderates be more likely to agree while those at either ideological end of the spectrum are less likely to agree?
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This is a difficult question. To be able to post anonymously provides a means to strike out at others who have difficulty defending themselves in such a public forum. In past generations, personal vendetta would have no greater audience than the local community. Now we must defend ourselves from an unknown attacker, on a global stage.
I understand as a moderate the frustration of seeing virulent ideology passed off as news! And there is nothing anonymous about it. That is far more offensive to me. Because it is on the radio or TV, it must be so.
However, without the anonymity of blogging, whistle-blowers cannot alert the public to issues which deserve attention. This might be especially true in areas of product safety or malfeasance in government. It has been my experience that for every one story made public, there are several others which die a silent death, too unbelievable to be made public. If we open the door to revealing the identity of bloggers, it is far more likely that big business and big government will have the means to pursue the whistle-blower, to the extent of the law.
To me, the issue has become: has blogging desensitized the public to matters which deserve attention? This is the opposite end of the continuum.