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Comment by auganov | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty ambivalent about what many seem to call "doxxing". I get it when publishing phone numbers or addresses for no reason.

But I don't get the notion that you have a moral obligation to protect other's pseudonymity in general. Especially when it's not patently obvious that they've taken steps to conceal it. I mean sure, I get that it can be done in harassing ways too. Randomly brining up someone's full name in a comment reply is probably not nice. But when writing a big piece on some fascinating persona it seems fine to me.

Also purely strategically speaking when your identity is elaborated on to cry "doxxing" only makes you look like you've actually done something wrong, have something to hide. If you don't want to own things you have written, best not write them in the first place.

It's almost as if people desire the ability to be a public figure without any of the downsides.

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Journalists typically ask two questions here: 'does this person wish to be named?' and 'is it in the public interest to ignore this request?'. It is highly dubious that there is any public interest in revealing Scott's name, hence the outrage.

Second, depending on the story and person, revealing a name can very easily lead to revealing phone numbers and addresses. So this isn't just 'a name'.

Finally, Scott very clearly does not want to be a public figure.

>Finally, Scott very clearly does not want to be a public figure.

If you're writing a blog under a consistent identity pretty much by definition you are a public figure because you're creating public discourse and attaching your name/pseudonym to it.

You can't really have it both ways. If you want to speak publicly but truly don't want to be identified you can do that by just posting anonymously, or you can just not engage in public discourse.

But if you do write even with some invented persona clearly you want others to recognise that.

Keeping a persona wholly separate from your identity is fine, and that's clearly and explicitly his goal.

Having a persona doesn't mean you "want attention" and thus it's somehow then fine to link your persona to your private life.

His persona is his first and middle name, and he's posted his profession, place of residence on the blog and attented public events, even posted pictures of himself and organised real world SSC meetups. So you'll have to explain to me how his goal was to separate those identities.

Hell he is explicitly blogging as a psychiatrist, which is his actual identity.

If he wanted to keep them separate it would have been trivial to keep them separate. He never chose to do that. He even blogged about his patients.

Not sure why we have to? In the article on his blog, in the New Yorker piece, and in the reddit threads, Scott articulates his goal and his rationale.

Because what he articulates is contradicted by his behaviour on a regular basis. Scott is an intelligent guy, if he wanted to stay anonymous he could. He clearly doesn't, so he is at the very least insincere.

There's an increasing culture on the internet of wanting to be able to speak to large audiences without being personally held accountable for what is being said, treating pseudonomity or anonmity as a right rather than as a personal practise.

This was already explained so many times at Hacker News, at least three times by myself. Here is another attempt:

If you are a reader of Slate Star Codex, and you google for e.g. "Scott Alexander, psychiatrist", you can find that his real identity is Alex Salamander. Scott was always okay with this, because he trusts his readers. (Yeah, maybe he regrets it now.)

But if you are a patient looking for a psychiatrist, and you google for "Dr. Alex Salamander", Scott doesn't want you to find Slate Star Codex. Because... that's obviously not a good thing to read for people who are depressed, or paranoid, or whatever.

NYT publishing an article containing "Alex Salamander" and "Slate Star Codex" together, would obviously put SSC into top google results for "Alex Salamander". Which is what Scott is trying to prevent. Does it make more sense now?

tl;dr: google for Scott Alexander, find Alex Salamander = okay; google for Alex Salamander, find Scott Alexander = not okay

(By the way, his real name is not Alex Salamander, I just made it up now to make the example easier to read.)

>NYT publishing an article containing "Alex Salamander" and "Slate Star Codex" together, would obviously put SSC into top google results for "Alex Salamander". Which is what Scott is trying to prevent. Does it make more sense now?

Yeah that makes total sense, I understand why he doesn't want that. But this doesn't really mean a journalist shouldn't divulge it if the journalist thinks using his name is in the public interest. (which in itself is a case-by-case judgement of course, but using people's real names who engage in public discourse is quite common).

That was my earlier point, if both your real name and your pseudonym are out there and connected, you don't really have a right or even a really reasonable expectation to not turn up in a Google search result.

That said I have a different suspicion. He may be simply afraid that his patients feel betrayed when they find out he's been blogging about them in the past, and they might be uncomfortable with the content they find on the site, even if in anonymized form.

Barrin92 has been posting publicly since 2016 and has amassed a considerable amount (10k+) since then. Clearly, you're a public figure since you're creating public discourse and attaching your name/pseudonym to it.

Presumably you should be okay publishing your personal/legal name, and easy-to-google employment information. I'll wait.

I'm not okay with it which is why I don't share personally identifiable information here, which is a pretty straightforward thing not to do. If my username was my actual name and you'd figure out who I am, you can safely assume I don't give a crap.

And if I did something that creates so much public attention that people want to know who I am and can figure that out with a minute of Googling, yeah then I'm not anonmyous any more, but I'd not go around whining about journalists doing their job.

It's my responsibility to consider how much about me I share on the internet, not anyone else's.

> It's almost as if people desire the ability to be a public figure without any of the downsides.

This is a dangerous trend in thinking I'm seeing more and more.

Run a blog when you're not at your day job and answer questions for an interview? Congrats, you're a "public figure!" Say hello to Kanye for me.

Sharing a dumb article with friends on Facebook? Nope. You're actually "publishing content on a global news platform."

etc etc

If you are running a blog presented to the public for public access, what do you expect? Yes, you are indeed trying to become a public figure. You are interacting with the public on public terms. Otherwise you would restrict the blog to a more private venue such as yourself (a journal) or some small community (friends, family, etc).

Sharing content is a different matter because you didn't originate the content and you didn't set the public policy on it.

I think you're creating a binary where one doesn't exist. People communicate ideas for a variety of reasons only one of which is to gain public notoriety. If someone wishes to publish their writing pseudonymously then they should be free to do so with the expectation that any reasonable person will respect their right to privacy. The idea that people should just keep to themselves or their in-group to avoid public persecution is directly contrary to the idea of a free and open society and has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a symptom of authoritarian regimes or movements.

It's not about notoriety. It's simply the physics of interacting with the public. If you don't like the results you need to change the physics to private. There is nothing that can guarantee your anonymity or pseudonymity as you distribute your information to public actors. They can correlate your actions regardless of your wishes on the matter. That's what doxxing is.

Sounds like a recipe for a chilling effect to me. Why risk being denounced? Just shut up and never interact with anyone in any way that others could use against you. As a society we need to enforce norms that protect everyone's ability to operate in good faith. If a person or an organization doxxes someone or publishes information against their expressed wishes without a clear moral obligation to do so then they should be held accountable. I'm hoping that this case has garnered enough attention that the pressure is being felt by the NYT and others.

If I talk to my friends in a pub, I don't expect my boss to get a full report on my speech the next day. I also don't expect that report to appear at my next job interview.

Unfortunately, internet blurs the boundaries between the work and non-work life. We need to find out new ways how to navigate this. It seemed like using a pseudonym would be a solution (because you can hardly hide your real name from your boss). Unfortunately, seems like unless you use paranoid precautions, people will take pleasure at connecting your private life to your job.

What value does adding the real name of the person to the article bring to you, the reader? Would you interpret it any differently if the name was different?

Seems like a pretty clear cut case for not mentioning the name.

Journalists and writers in general aim to make a story appealing to their readers. One way they do this is bring to life their subjects, and some ways they can do that is to name the subject, tell readers what neighborhood the subject lives in, age, what kind of life they lead etc. People are interested in other people.

It has value but it's a mechanism that isn't necessarily needed in all cases.

One could do a thought experiment imagining a group of newspaper readers evaluating an edition where names of subjects were not given and one where they were. Which edition would be more interesting?

> some ways they can do that is to name the subject

That is "to give the subject a name", not "to reveal the name of the subject". It's usually "Maria [name changed] is the youngest of three daughters, her parents ...". That gives the subject a name, but there's no need for it to be the full name, or even the actual first name, because the story tend to be about the circumstances or what happened to the subject, not their name.

Scott Alexander is a public figure. He himself shares his first name, middle name, profession, and city.

Is that true of “Maria” in your example?

"Public figure" doesn't really go well with "wants to remain pseudonymous". He writes a blog as a personal hobby, he's not a celebrity or politician.

And yes, that's pretty often true about subjects of articles that do not get doxxed, because "Maria, NYC, Nurse" is enough to give you an idea about the person but far away from being enough for individual identification. And, of course, it doesn't matter for the story, just as the name doesn't matter for any profile about SSC.

He is arguably a minor celebrity because of the number of followers he has and level of influence.

Come on - if the New York Times is writing about your blog then you're obviously, anonymous or not, a "public figure", though perhaps a minor one.

Also until we know what the article is - it's actual contents - how can we know if the name is relevant or not?

Well, I don't know much about this person or the article that was coming up, hence making a general point. [0]

But generally when writing a piece on anybody it's normal to gather all kinds of details about one's life. Profession/job, educational history, some basic family background and name is usually one of them too.

Now again if the journalist has a good relationship with the person and they say they really want to go by XYZ instead of their full name, this is a perfectly valid request to me. But the notion that one is committing a grave crime if they don't comply (or ask) is another story.

Say back in the day I wrote a little piece on something that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Some journalist got interested in it and called me to discuss it. Spent most of the time discussing my own background. Hardly talked about my story at all. Wasn't enthused about this but I understand that's something people generally want to know.

[0] I mean correct me if I'm wrong but this person publishe[s/ed] under their regular first and second name. Mentions his actual life and experiences in his publicly available writings. Is generally easy to track down. Has a big cult following. But wants their last name redacted. Again, not saying that the journalist shouldn't honor the request. But nonetheless the whole situation is a bit bizarre. And sooner or later his full name will be out there (probably already is). So he's essentially asking for his full name not to rank too well in search results?

Pseudonymous publishing has a long and respected history.

Criticising the wrong people, or arguing with the beliefs of a mob, can be physically dangerous.

Anonymity gives writers of all kinds a platform to express an opinion without fear of violent reprisals from those who disagree.

Journalists also need to protect useful sources - hence the cliche "...according to people familiar with the matter."

As long as writers don't abuse this by promoting personal attacks on others, I'm completely fine with this.

> Pseudonymous publishing has a long and respected history.

Well there's definitely a history of authors publishing pseudonymously. I don't know of a tradition of keeping the identities secret even after they've been revealed. Unless legally mandated as it is in come countries[0].

I mean someone afraid of getting killed for their writings would certainly not make it obvious who they are and then rely on others not mentioning it. There's certainly no tradition of that.

The whole phenomenon of "doxxing" as I understand it is something new. In the most radical form the ask seems to be that you should outright not mention any information about a person unless it has been explicitly volunteered to you for publishing.

I guess the problem here is many people publish publicly on the Internet not expecting much of anything. And then after they become notorious they may regret giving up their privacy. So there's a new push to create a stronger norm of what's considered private and who's considered a public figure.

[0] say some places will mandate redacting last names of people charged with crimes

> I guess the problem here is many people publish publicly on the Internet not expecting much of anything. And then after they become notorious they may regret giving up their privacy.

I will definitely tell my kids to never use their real names online. Maybe let them brainstorm an alias they will use consistently, so that their friends will know. Just in case they would want one day to have a fresh start, get rid of whatever haters and stalkers they happened to collect in the past, etc.

Unfortunately, in the Age of Online Advertising, many websites have using the real name as a condition in their terms of service. They will not verify the name when you create the account, but they might do it later if someone reports you. Should I teach them to lie? Should I teach them to use a fake photo? Sooner or later someone will upload a photo with them, and tag them, anyway.

Also, if you use a pseudonym, you better make a habit of changing it regularly, because at some moment someone will dox you.

...and that's with the technology we have today. Maybe in the near future an artificial intelligence will connect everything you ever wrote online, regardless of the pseudonyms or whatever, based on the statistical analysis of your writing, or something like that.

> What value does adding the real name of the person to the article bring to you, the reader?

Honestly, it's hard to tell without the article being published and seeing what comes of it?

It's not like particularly rare for an article to be published where the journalist includes the name and two or three aliases of the subject of the article, and suddenly a lot of people realize that the person they thought they were dealing with in an isolated way is actually engaged in a much larger pattern of behavior -- the person who skipped out on a couple of grand in rent with a sob story under one name did the same thing ten more times under three different names, the guy with a family in one state has a couple more in two different states that didn't know about each other, the "reference" that spoke so well about a former employee is actually said employee, etc etc etc.

Doxxing is a classical example of the ad hominem logical fallacy. Criticise the argument, not the person making it.

This idea is of course completely lost on the post-modern cancel culture.

The amount is Sophistry in modern times is stunning. Appeal to authority, appeal to the crowd, anecdotal evidence, straw men, etc

The quality of thought seems to be incredibly low.

Critical thinking is not taught properly in western schools.

Are there any current schools where it’s taught properly?

Can it even be taught?

Up to a degree, definitely. It seems thought that for certain people it somehow comes naturally. (But perhaps it was taught to them unbeknownst to themselves)

People can at least be told about the concept. Mentioning the socratic method yields nothing but blank stares to high schoolers.

I think anyone can learn...but the discovery of truth can be extremely scary and painful...and I don't think most people want to face REAL reality even if its more truthful and data based.

An easy narrative is much happier and easier to digest do people will choose that over truth.

I think religius narratives came about specifically to deal with the reality of pain, the unknown, and death.

I was going to comment nearly this exact thing. SSC guy has worked slavishly for years to grow a fan base which has had knock-on effects as the community he’s carefully curated intersects with some that have done incredible harm on twitter and reddit. This just reads like not wanting to have to take real responsibility for what has come of his speech.

> a fan base which has had knock-on effects as the community he’s carefully curated intersects with some that have done incredible harm on twitter and reddit

You can say this about pretty much any group of people.

Everyone is now partly responsible for what the other adults they associate with do when they're not around?

This is not the world you want to live in even if you think you want it.

Why is it relevant that this can be true about any group? You’re projecting. My comment was about the fact that the OTHER group will seek reprisal and it’s at very least rather immature to stamp your feet about this after the fact. Dude isn’t a kid. He makes a gigantic show of his intellect and turns around and acts shocked when he reaps the product of celebrity.

Also to answer your other question yes, we’re all responsible for what others do because no action exists in a vacuum. Like it or not that’s the world we live in. It’s always been this way.

Are we talking about his supposed desire for celebrity or the claim that he's responsible for the actions of others? Those seem orthogonal.

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