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In this day and age of ruined lives and careers over a tweet, the need for anonymous speech is greater than it has been in a long time.

by jayess 8y ago

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
There is also something to be said for separation of concerns. If the CEO of Ford was gay or pro-choice, should she be deterred from supporting such causes because many of the people who buy Ford trucks have contrary opinions? And being forced to support marginalized causes in public rather than in private will de fact out you as a member of that class. Which means less support for marginalized people, by the full measure of what they could get in private but not in public. Moreover, what is knowing the source of money supposed to get you? If you see some "climate change is a hoax" rhetoric, you don't need a paper trail to know who is behind it, and the answer in any case is to disprove it rather than ad hom the funding source.
- benj111 8y ago
  "you don't need a paper trail to know who is behind it" don't you? It could be that ethical supermarket that you shop at because you think it shares your values. "If the CEO of Ford...." I suppose as an investor, theres a good case to be made that you should know the true opinions of the CEO. If they say in public they're neutral on gay rights, shouldn't you expect them to behave that way. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure how that would play out. Note I am a bit unsatisfied with the thought police aspect of that line of reasoning though.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > And being forced to support marginalized causes in public rather than in private will de fact out you as a member of that class. Not at all necessarily - this is what allyship is all about. > ad hom the funding source Some funding sources may be illegal, and I would hope that tracing advertising to foreign intelligence agencies would do something to discredit it.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > Not at all necessarily - this is what allyship is all about. That doesn't really work. It means that you have to disguise support for your cause by spending most of your resources to support several other causes which may themselves already have more support than yours. Moreover, "mix your money into a pool of money from other people that then goes where you want it without anyone being able to tell who sent what where" is basically how money laundering works. If that is allowed then you might as well abandon the pretense of tracing the money to begin with, because the "bad guys" will just do the same thing. > Some funding sources may be illegal, and I would hope that tracing advertising to foreign intelligence agencies would do something to discredit it. That is still basically an ad hominem attack. If the Russians get hold of Clinton's emails and release them, the fact that it was the Russians releasing them doesn't do much to disprove that she wrote them. Moreover, if the funding source is a foreign intelligence agency, it's not as if they're going to file a disclosure statement saying "Funding Source: KGB" instead of using the name of a cutout. You have to prove it was them using some other means than what they disclosed, which makes the disclosure requirement pretty useless at catching the bad guys while still imposing real costs on people who are not doing anything wrong.
benj111 8y ago
Are you making reference to tweets a future famous person made as a teenager, or people saying inappropriate things in the here and now? The former, I have sympathy, and we probably need to get better as a society at dealing with it. The latter not so much, especially if you're paying for your podium.

In this day and age of ruined lives and careers over a tweet, the need for anonymous speech is greater than it has been in a long time.

by jayess 8y ago

In this day and age of ruined lives and careers over a tweet, the need for anonymous speech is greater than it has been in a long time.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

There is also something to be said for separation of concerns. If the CEO of Ford was gay or pro-choice, should she be deterred from supporting such causes because many of the people who buy Ford trucks have contrary opinions? And being forced to support marginalized causes in public rather than in private will de fact out you as a member of that class. Which means less support for marginalized people, by the full measure of what they could get in private but not in public. Moreover, what is knowing the source of money supposed to get you? If you see some "climate change is a hoax" rhetoric, you don't need a paper trail to know who is behind it, and the answer in any case is to disprove it rather than ad hom the funding source.

benj111 8y ago
"you don't need a paper trail to know who is behind it" don't you? It could be that ethical supermarket that you shop at because you think it shares your values. "If the CEO of Ford...." I suppose as an investor, theres a good case to be made that you should know the true opinions of the CEO. If they say in public they're neutral on gay rights, shouldn't you expect them to behave that way. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure how that would play out. Note I am a bit unsatisfied with the thought police aspect of that line of reasoning though.
pjc50 8y ago
> And being forced to support marginalized causes in public rather than in private will de fact out you as a member of that class. Not at all necessarily - this is what allyship is all about. > ad hom the funding source Some funding sources may be illegal, and I would hope that tracing advertising to foreign intelligence agencies would do something to discredit it.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Not at all necessarily - this is what allyship is all about. That doesn't really work. It means that you have to disguise support for your cause by spending most of your resources to support several other causes which may themselves already have more support than yours. Moreover, "mix your money into a pool of money from other people that then goes where you want it without anyone being able to tell who sent what where" is basically how money laundering works. If that is allowed then you might as well abandon the pretense of tracing the money to begin with, because the "bad guys" will just do the same thing. > Some funding sources may be illegal, and I would hope that tracing advertising to foreign intelligence agencies would do something to discredit it. That is still basically an ad hominem attack. If the Russians get hold of Clinton's emails and release them, the fact that it was the Russians releasing them doesn't do much to disprove that she wrote them. Moreover, if the funding source is a foreign intelligence agency, it's not as if they're going to file a disclosure statement saying "Funding Source: KGB" instead of using the name of a cutout. You have to prove it was them using some other means than what they disclosed, which makes the disclosure requirement pretty useless at catching the bad guys while still imposing real costs on people who are not doing anything wrong.

benj111 8y ago

Are you making reference to tweets a future famous person made as a teenager, or people saying inappropriate things in the here and now? The former, I have sympathy, and we probably need to get better as a society at dealing with it. The latter not so much, especially if you're paying for your podium.