[projectvrm] Anonymity

["Joe Andrieu" < >]

A while back Doc wrote: 
> When I wondered about the connection between anonymity and principles, Joyce
> said this:
> 
> "You can't have true autonomy unless you can move in an anonymous way."
> 

I think this is a bit of a red herring.  It's true and interesting, but
it's not particularly relevant, because we don't want and can never
actually have true autonomy unless we return to a state of nature.

The entire point of society is to give up some of our natural rights in
order that we might construct a better living. Even in the most
libertarian views of the world, your autonomy ends where your neighbor's
begins.  Negotiating those boundaries is the whole point of the social
contract that creates our civic world.  What we're doing here with VRM
is renegotiating that contract given the capability of the Internet to
do things better.

There is an argument that freedom requires anonymity. But that's not
actually true. For two reasons.

First, what freedom needs is the ability to engage in discourse without
fear of reprisal from those who have a different view. If we can't
engage in that discourse, there's no way for us, as a society, to fully
consider the issues at hand.  Anonymity is one way to do that, to a
point. It certainly helps bring out contentious claims and counter
points. But for any of those divergent views to actually change the
system, you need relationships and credibility.  So, while you might
want anonymity from an oppressive state, you actually rely on being
known by your fellow revolutionaries as someone they can trust.  I want
to be able to discuss what matters to me among my friends without being
called to a congressional hearing about it, but I don't need to be
anonymous when talking with those friends. Far from it, I want to know
who they are and vice versa, because it's the relationship that makes me
feel safe exploring unconventional ideas.

Second, anonymity is never really possible. Mathematically, you are as
anonymous as the number of people you can be confused with. It is a
sliding scale of certainty that "you" are "you" to a mere estimate that
"you" are one of several billion people. We literally have professions
and degrees you can get for people trained in reducing those billions
into legally actionable certainty. Forensics and plain old detective
work can turn what might seem like an anonymous interaction on your
public library's web terminal to an eye-witness and evidentiary tale
that can get you convicted in court for what happened on that terminal.
For all practical purposes, anonymity is a function of the cost of
determining a correlatable identity.  If it's worth it to find out who
that "anonymous" actor is, it can usually be done.  And society has
consistently allowed gross breaches of our freedoms in pursuit of the
identity of various criminals. The conversation to be had is about the
price we are willing to pay in that pursuit and what burden of proof is
needed to move to the next stage. So while we can shape how much we'll
pay to resolve anonymity to identity, we can't actually assure
anonymity.

Instead, I think instead of anonymity, what we really want are two
things, both of which Lewis Hyde discusses rather eloquently in Common
as Air.  

First, we want to be free from tyranny. That is, we want to avoid power
from one domain applied in another. We don't want our boss telling us
what we can do in our time off. We don't want the government telling us
how we can worship. We don't want our computer maker telling us what
software we can and cannot run. And we don't want anyone telling us what
we can and cannot do on other people's websites.  Anonymity is one way
to avoid certain types of tyranny. But it also enables other types.  How
much does it suck that the only time you can truly express yourself is
when you're anonymous?  That's not the kind of world I want to live in. 

Second, we want interstitial spaces where we, as a society, can engage
in discourse about the boundaries between one domain and another without
any particular domain having the upper hand. For example, we need
intelligent--not belligerent--debates about whether fair use is more
important than preventing unauthorized duplication.

One of our biggest problems is that the two primary interstitial spaces
of legal standing, the courts and the legislature, are dominated by
moneyed interests, namely corporations and the wealthy. Between
lobbyists and well-paid lawyers, it's very hard for the average person
to be heard in those fora.  Again, anonymity can provide a means for
participating in discourse, but that's still less desirable than
speaking freely to our brothers, parents, neighbors, and bosses without
fear of reprisal... and have them know that we are that sibling, child,
neighbor or employee.  A heartfelt argument means more when it comes
from someone you know, someone you get is a "normal" person.

So, while anonymity is an easy option as a rebuttal to the surveillance
state, I don't think it is actually what we want.  Instead, we want to
be able to connect in contexts where our exposure is understood and
acceptable, where we know what we are getting into, where we can tell
the difference between an intimate chat with friends, and taking a stand
at a city council hearing.  Being anonymous helps us avoid certain types
of tyranny, but it doesn't contribute to the fabric of a healthy
society.

Anonymity is a special case of privacy. And privacy is contextual. If we
can resolve the context management problem, we can solve them both.

-j

-- 
Joe Andrieu
SwitchBook Software

 
+1(805)705-8651