[L.Wray] is a weblogger whom I first noticed listed among those participating in Grey Tuesday. I was basically intrigued that someone would provide an address hosted at, or at least directed through, their university, hence putting their academic career on the line. She quit after reading the last-minute cease and desist Capitol Records sent, but I occasionally looked at her weblog after that and subscribed to the feed five days ago. There’s an offbeat freshness to her writing that I liked, but I probably would’ve unsubscribed in a while anyway since her pieces are way too focused on personal activities that few people besides friends would care about.
In any case, the fuddy-duddies in her college’s administration were not amused. And their actions have made her rethink her content:
The message I’m forced to take away from this is that the administration of this college is failing badly. If a freshman student’s blog, hardly better than hearsay, is distressing enough that it’s grounds for taking punitive action, then administrators are truly and sadly clueless about the scope of undergraduate activities at MIT. I am still shocked that anyone would care what I write on a personal website. In any case, I know online journals by students at other college who talk with complete frankness about getting hammered most weeknights, smoking pot, experimenting with other drugs — all kinds of things a college administration would surely jump on if they knew. [...]
So. I’m trying really hard not to be completely pissed off, but this whole business makes me very angry and sad. No, this isn’t censorship, per se. But the MIT Big Brother has definitely paid me a visit.
Add one more to the list of people muzzled by work/academia, family or other concerns.
Last year, Joi Ito wrote about the collapsing facets of identity. Basically we present different facets of our personality to different people. Mom talks to a different ‘me’ than my close friends do; my professors don�t talk to same person that an anonymous IRC correspondent of mine would.
When you write in a mass-published medium, the audience cannot be demarcated. Although that’s obvious, it’s also quite unfortunate. I can think of things I’d write here if it didn’t get to, say, family and the people who know them. Or maybe everyone but that one person who’s the unnamed subject of a post.
Anonymity is a solution. Pseudonymity is indeed what many writers opt for; Atrios, Jivha and Belle immediately come to mind. It might be somewhat workable if all you want to do is rant about being grounded or that person who pissed you off at an odd time yesterday. But the minute you want to connect your anonymous online activity to your identifiable persona, you’re going to bear the responsibility for all you’ve written. Atrios and Belle maintain a shaky kind of anonymity–the former attended the Democratic Unity Dinner and the latter has a book deal. The clincher: misstep an itsy bit and Google will find you. (The creator of ‘ChatNannies’ is–to put it charitably–a potentially unsavoury figure, ‘Amanda Doerty’ is probably someone else, etc.)
So if you can’t write about everything identifiably, and workable anonymity forces an effacement of personality, what’s the way to write and be yourself? Own yourself. Don’t post anything–on weblogs, in comments, on Usenet–that you’re not comfortable with the whole world knowing about. Be anonymous in other situations. Realize that the whole model of the Internet thwarts information control, and use that awareness to your advantage.
But the information consumers also have to play by these rules of the Panopticon. L’s college is trying to preserve a reputation that is fake: “Our students? Drink when underage? Horror of horrors, never!”
Information that stayed within groups of friends in the past or was time-shifted is now broadcast around the world in real time. Deal with it. How many bits can you force into how many mouths? How much expression are people going to curb and how many audiences are they going to shut from those with the drive to express themselves? Like Mark Pilgrim wrote,
Writers will write because they can’t not write. Repeat that over and over to yourself until you get it. Do you know someone like that? Someone who does what they do, not for money or glory or love or God or country, but simply because it’s who they are and you can’t imagine them being any other way?
You do now.
Fuck MIT’s BlogPolice.
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Hey – an inspiring entry if ever I saw one! So what does this mean? Anonymous Firas or Real Firas?
Just the procrastinating, pontificating Firas.