He already published his identity. NYT didn't dox him and he later admitted be overreacted.
Why does he deserve anonymity anyway? I don't get it.
Edit: Nice to see I'm downvoted for pointing out the facts. I guess I'm a "badthinker" too.
Why does he deserve anonymity anyway? I don't get it.
Edit: Nice to see I'm downvoted for pointing out the facts. I guess I'm a "badthinker" too.
He decided that they were going to do so regardless of what he did, upended his own life to minimize the damage that'd occur when his name got released, and did so, in order to ensure that his real name and his pseudonym got linked on his own terms, not theirs.
If NYT didn't decide to dox him, the entire second paragraph wouldn't have happened.
He deserved pseudonymity for the same reason you or I deserve pseudonymity.
Not really. "Doxing" [1] is from message board culture, but the NYT is not some poster on a message board. To expect them to abide by message board law in their newspaper as if they're just a poster on reddit is like expecting an American to live by Chinese law and custom in America.
[1] At least in the sense of using someone's real name.
With that said, I don’t think the NYT did anything legally wrong, but it’s kind of a bad look for a newspaper that loves to claim their moral righteousness. It can’t be illegal to say a person’s real name and say what they do as a side gig/hobby. But if someone asks you not to do it, then it’s not cool to do it. It’s not like he’s a movie celebrity constantly putting himself in the public eye. He made a pretty solid effort too keep his internet persona separate from his day job, and most of us feel like that should be respected.
But he did overreact, as he admitted. If he had just kept his mouth shut the NYT article probably wouldn’t have had too many readers and his nuclear option probably attracted more attention.
Why does he need to "deserve" anonymity? If you have something already and someone wants to take it away, don't you need to justify why you're taking that thing away?
His stated reason he wanted to remain pseudonymous is that, even though it was easy to go from his online to his real life identity, the NYT article would make it easy to go in the other direction - and that enabling his present and previous patients (he's a psychiatrist, so they're not always the most stable people) to discover his online persona would jeopardise his career.
The NYT article made specific claims. It's up to the reader to evaluate them and decide what to infer.
I figured the extension of "and the pseudonym relates to the content" is implied, as knowing "Scott Alexander Siskind" goes by "Scott Alexander" online is not very useful information.
> The NYT article made specific claims. It's up to the reader to decide what to infer.
"I've only ever seen pseudalopex on a forum that's known to be frequented by racists" is a specific claim that is true, but it's clearly making strong inferences about your character. Journalists play this game all the time in hit pieces.
You analogy doesn't reflect the article.
This seems to me like strange framing. 'Anonymity' in this case is not something that someone 'owns' and others 'take it away', it is a demand on others to avoid certain behavior (speaking about your name).
Thinking and speaking is fundamental right. Therefore if person A research public sources to find person B's name, then it is fully within rights of person A to express that. If person B has some advantages from that not being expressed (like in this case), then is up to person B to negotiate with person A for that.
Trying to suppress information that is already public is often silly and counterproductive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Who said anything about rights? I'm not arguing that spreading someone's name far and wide against their wishes is illegal. I'm saying it is a dick move, if someone has specifically asked you not to.
Is this guy a king? What gives him the right to tell the press what to print or not to print?
That still doesn't answer my question. Sounds very abstract like you are trying to evade answering the question.
He didn't have anonymity. He already published his name. Someone that publishes their name doesn't deserve anonymity, correct?
> and that enabling his present and previous patients (he's a psychiatrist, so they're not always the most stable people) to discover his online persona would jeopardise his career.
He already admitted he was overreacting on this point.
I don't think your question merits answering, because framing anonymity as something one has to "deserve" makes no sense to me. Saying it needs to be "deserved" suggests it's a privilege granted to people for some merit, rather than the default on the internet until someone either surrenders it willingly, or in this case, has it stripped by another party - so it's akin to privacy in that way. Does anyone "deserve" privacy? Silly question really.
> He didn't have anonymity. He already published his name. Someone that publishes their name doesn't deserve anonymity, correct?
As far as I'm aware, he only published his full name after he knew the article was going up.
> He already admitted he was overreacting on this point.
I can still see how he would initially be worried. Shining a light on someone known for looking into controversial topics and then following it up with "by the way this is his name and he lives in such-and-such town" is vaguely threatening, and inviting people who read the article and decide he's a Nazi or something to mess with his real life.
Incorrect. Someone making a mistake does not give you the right to exploit that mistake. That's what Eric Harris thought but it's not how civilized society works. The fact that Scott gave some information away (indirectly) at some point (which you call "publishing") doesn't actually change the significance of the actions.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
I think the most exciting way to look at the situation is that no one is really to blame. There are some fucky emergent collective dynamics about, acting like some mythical monster with hapless individuals as its neurons. A grasshopper never chooses to become a locust; it transforms into one when there are too many grasshoppers at the same place bumping into each other. It's no longer an individual. It's part of the swarm. And with the swarm comes destruction.
There's a tendency for cults to suddenly become destructive. Like they've become Harlon Ellis' AI that has no mouth and must scream. Cursed with sudden uncontrollable sentience, it seeks revenge. The Rajneesh movement and Aum Shinrikyo both carried out biological warfare. And you can see these destructive tendencies in most cults, for some reason.
And now, literally connected in a globe-spanning network we see cult-like behavior take on a whole new dimension.
The editorial staff at NYT obviously wants to make good, honest decisions and carry out an important social mission to the benefit of us all. But what if it's not their choice anymore? What if there are collective dynamics that supersede individual agency?
(I do not mean to say that the NYT operates as a cult; it's more that we might be witnessing the sort of dynamics we traditionally see in cults play out across the social media landscape at large.)
I don't mean to say that this is a good or morally correct choice by society's notion, merely that the choice may be more difficult individually.
I never claimed to have any faith in the NYT. I just think the pity party is overdone. Scott threw a tantrum and then backtracked.
I'm only discussing the facts.