On Sunday, blogger Jack Bogdanski promised to unmask his online anonymous attacker today.
True to his word, Bogdanski is now alleging the attacker is Robert Canfield, a city council member in Troutdale.
Dirty.
I just called Canfield, asking simply, “was it you?”
“Why don’t you go on my blog and figure it out for yourself,” he said. [CLICK]
I was about to ask him whether he felt such behavior, for example, accusing Bogdanski of putting his children at risk by fathering them after 45, was appropriate for an elected official. In fact, I had a whole bunch of questions lined up. Too bad.
Wow. That guy is going to get soooooo sued.
Wait, Troutdale has its own government? That’s cute! Do they meet at the Denny’s once a month or something?
it doesn’t bother anyone else that when you comment anonymously, you expect to keep that anonymity barring a court order?
maybe this is the best cure for the dirtiest, most pernicious trolls (going after someone’s family planning calls is shitty), but as someone who speaks very freely when she’s anonymous because she trusts a site to keep her anonymous, this bothers me.
Commenting on anyone else’s site is subject to their rules. If they want to “out” anonymous commenters, there’s not much you can do about it.
If you want to pursue anonymous speech, however, a better approach is to start your own blog. But don’t just log in to Blogger and start posting. You’ll need to take care to hide your tracks – your connection to the internet provides all sorts of metadata that can point back to you, like the address and type of connection you have, the time and date of your connection, the browser and operating system you’re using, and so forth and whatnot. So you’ll need to find out how to strip that metadata, or randomize it, or somethin’.
I like how Mr. Canfield is claiming that his personal attacks are somehow “political speech”. Mr. Bogdanski isn’t an elected official, he has no special legislative or executive power beyond that of any other citizen. If anything it’s Mr. Canfield who’s abusing his power, petty though it may be.
This is just two cranky old white guys pissing each other off. If they were neighbors they’d be building a “spite fence” right about now.
“it doesn’t bother anyone else that when you comment anonymously, you expect to keep that anonymity barring a court order?”
What bothers me is that people actually believe this. While you have a right to write and speak anonymously, it’s rare that any third-party is under any legal obligation to keep you anonymous.
We’re not talking about, say, banks and private financial data here. We’re talking about posting one’s words to someone else’s website.
Damn you, b!x, for saying what I was trying to say!
Only, y’know, better and shorter.
Using anonymity to speak truth to power and posit legitimate dialogue about politics is one thing.
Having an ELECTED OFFICIAL write vile personal attacks to a citizen on a BLOG who’s website about covering politics in the region as a hobby is quite another.
i know that the mercury, say, has no *legal* obligation to keep me anonymous(ish). but i trust them to. i think a lot of people operate on that trust, and if we’re changing the expectations, i hope that’s clear to people up front. i’m not surprised to see someone like jack bog (whose ethics i consider very weird and different from my own) cross that line with no hesitation, and i would never trust him with my real identity in any way. but more considerate people than jack bog should give it some thought before they out their commenters.
i think the dude he outed and republican politicians in general are reprehensible. but the way people’s identities are handled shouldn’t (necessarily?) change because you disagree on points unrelated to anonymity.