"Douse the Online Flamers"
March 01, 2008 Filed in: Privacy
"Today, when cowardly anonymity is souring Internet
discourse, it really is hard to understand how
anonymous speech is vital to a free society." Huh??
Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, begins with "Faceless Internet sadists who ruin reputations don't deserve full free-speech protection" in this LA Times op-ed (see a compelling case in our own world) ... but then concludes along a bewilderingly different axis that anonymous speech is somehow no longer vital to a free society. Surely addressing the issue of defamation in the online world doesn't have to be synonymous with tainting the value of all anonymous speech?
Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, begins with "Faceless Internet sadists who ruin reputations don't deserve full free-speech protection" in this LA Times op-ed (see a compelling case in our own world) ... but then concludes along a bewilderingly different axis that anonymous speech is somehow no longer vital to a free society. Surely addressing the issue of defamation in the online world doesn't have to be synonymous with tainting the value of all anonymous speech?