Online anonymity in Ireland

Slideshowbob wrote: »

So an Oireachtas committee to examine social media role in public debate.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1227/social-media-committee.html

This leads me to ponder why is anonymity desirable.

Is it always a cloak to protect a troll or can there be a higher essence to it?

What effect does it have on the author, the reader and they subject matter?

Does it do more harm than good in general society?

Debate is open - thanks!

I'm going to add another question to your list: Is it appropriate to legislate specifically for 'social media'?
... back to that in a moment. First on your questions:

There certainly can be more to anonymity than protecting a troll. For example and from personal experience; in the past I suffered from some mental health problems. These were partly the result of assaults as a child and partly other things. Being able to talk about these things anonymously and pseudonymously were very helpful to me at the time.

If you look around some forums on boards.ie now you will see many people 'going unreg' to talk about personal issues. I'd say that use of anonymity definitely has value.

There are also the standard talking points about protecting whistleblowers and political agitators. These are also good uses of anonymity.


I can't give much of an answer to your question about the effects of anonymity on the author, reader or subject. For myself I'd say I trust anything posted anonymously less than if there were an identity attached. Given that we all have a confirmation bias I'd say that too much anonymity could lead to an echo-chamber effect and increased polarisation in the discussion.


Does anonymity do more harm than good? I don't know. I've never lived in any society where anonymity is that hard to achieve. You could possibly look at small rural communities where everyone knows everyone else and explore the different harms and benefits compared to an urban centre. That might give some clues to work from.


Now the extra question: is it appropriate to legislate specifically for social media?
As a rule we should only have exceptional law where there are truly exceptional circumstances. What is different about social media that warrants special attention?
First: Are any new types of crime or antisocial behaviour made possible? I'd say no. Bullying has been a feature of human life forever. Social engineering and confidence crimes are nothing new. There are venerable laws covering attempts to damage a person's reputation in spoken and written words, and I think libel is generally recognised as applying to anything published in social media.
Second: Are the effects of these crimes different when perpetrated using social media? Without much evidence, I'd say no. I'd like to see more evidence on this question.

Anonymity is more of a necessary evil for without, someone cannot blow a whistle anonymously to raise the alarm on wrong without fear of retaliation by those they are blowing the whistle on.

In most cases, the whistle blowing is ignored unless some evidence is found, otherwise it is assumed to be a troll so IMO, we get more good of it than bad.

In certain countries, saying things that are even fairly innocent can land you in trouble and I think anonymity is very important in this instances and the likes of Ireland, we should be asking is it likely well never end up in that situation before we try to outlaw it.

bobbysands81 wrote: »

It's hard to tell how restrictive the rules that govern us really are. In theory me speaking about politics at the bar with my pals could be deemed to be breaking the rules of our employment. However, unless you were planning to overthrow the Govt it would be very unlikely that any action would be taken in this instance.

I do know of plenty of people who have received warnings for writing letters to the paper even though the topic they're writing about may bear no resemblance to what they work at.

Apart from Clerical Officers We're not allowed join political parties or run for election either.

Here's the rule -

"Civil servants other than –

a. Civil servants in the craft, state industrial and manual grades and
grades below clerical grades,

b. Clerical grades and non-industrial grades with salary maxima equal to or below the Clerical Officer maximum who have obtained permission from their Department to engage in politics,

c. Special advisers and the personal appointees of Ministers, Ministers of State, Parliamentary office holders and the Attorney General holding temporary unestablished positions,

d. Persons expressly permitted to do so by the terms of their employment,

are prohibited from engaging in politics i.e. they may not contribute to public debate and may not support or oppose a candidate or party either in writing, by public debate or by contribution to the media (e.g. letter writing to newspapers, contribution to television or radio programmes, discussions on the internet, etc.), except if required to do so as part of their official duties.

Civil servants, other than those in the exempted categories in paragraph 13 must not speak in public on matters of local or national political controversy or express views on such matters in the media (including electronic media and the press) or in books, academic papers, articles or leaflets.

Here's the link - http://hr.per.gov.ie/files/2011/06/Circular-09-2009.pdf

So as you can see the rules are very proscriptive.

I didn't realise that the rules were that broad or proscriptive. I wonder if these rules are constitutional, given "The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions" in Article 40?

It's perfectly reasonable that civil servants should not be seen to be speaking on behalf of the Dept, but surely they are entitled to express their own personal views.