Comments on: Do Courts Back Google and Facebook's View of Anonymity? http://paidcontent.org/2011/11/27/419-do-courts-back-google-and-facebooks-view-of-anonymity/ The economics of digital content Sat, 25 May 2013 21:53:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Ravan Asteris http://paidcontent.org/2011/11/27/419-do-courts-back-google-and-facebooks-view-of-anonymity/#comment-86348 Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:00:52 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2011/11/27/419-do-courts-back-google-and-facebooks-view-of-anonymity/#comment-86348 “Publius” was a pseudonym. A lot of other debate in the founding was anonymous or pseudononymous. While you may register to vote by name, what vote you actually cast is anonymous and secret. These idiots forget that the United States actually has a long tradition of anonymity and pseudonymity in politics, especially over controversial issues.

No one needs to know the name of the guy who wrote the pamphlet handed out on the corner, or the guy handling them out.  Why should they have to wear it on the net?  Let the ideas speak for themselves. 

It’s only when people start shoving large amounts of money at it that you need to start looking at names, to see who is buying the public square.  Money is not speech, and should not be anonymous.  The Supreme Court has this very wrong. 

Money is not speech, corporations are not people, and money does not buy speech, it buys a platform or a medium for organizations or people to amplify their speech with (or distort the speech of others), unfairly tilting the playing field of ideas.

]]> By: Dirk McKeenan http://paidcontent.org/2011/11/27/419-do-courts-back-google-and-facebooks-view-of-anonymity/#comment-86347 Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:46:22 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2011/11/27/419-do-courts-back-google-and-facebooks-view-of-anonymity/#comment-86347 If we speak of posing as a voting member of a society, standing up to be counted, it makes sense to state who you are.  If we speak of bringing up new thoughts, stating controversial ideas in a forum where thought is expected and allowing for the free sharing of new and possibly unpopular premises, anonymity frees the individual to venture into new territory.

Why do we have to bring these two grounds under the same umbrella?  You have to register to vote for a politician.  You do not have to register to buy a slogan t-shirt.

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