3 ms·

This is right. Given the same source and the same testimony, the journalist should prefer the source be public. It's when a source agrees to speak on conditio

This is right. Given the same source and the same testimony, the journalist should prefer the source be public. It's when a source agrees to speak on condition of anonymity that a journalist should protect that anonymity. If you ever speak to a journalist, remember that they are not offering you anonymity unless it's stated explicitly. None of which is terribly germane here, where Scott Alexander's involvement in this story is principally as subject, not source. Protecting the privacy of subjects isn't really a thing, outside of minors and such. Whether particular choice of subject is reasonable is certainly up for discussion. We also may need a new category of "public figure but not". But this is not "doxxing their source".

jdashg 6y ago
It really doesn't matter if he's the subject. > It may surprise some readers to learn that "Scott Alexander" is a pseudonym. Alexander tells us that he omits his last name for privacy and safety reasons: > > I have a lot of reasons for staying pseudonymous. First, I’m a psychiatrist, and psychiatrists are kind of obsessive about preventing their patients from knowing anything about who they are outside of work. I am not one of the big sticklers on this, but I’m more of a stickler than “let the New York Times tell my patients where they can find my personal blog”. I think it’s plausible that if I became a national news figure under my real name, my patients – who run the gamut from far-left anarchists to far-right gun nuts – wouldn’t be able to engage with me in a normal therapeutic way. I also worry that my clinic would decide I am more of a liability than an asset and let me go, which would leave hundreds of patients in a dangerous situation as we tried to transition their care. > > The second reason is more prosaic: some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level. > These concerns are tragically well-founded: Alexander tells us he recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. While it's common to want to attach a real person to a pseudonym, piercing that veil publicly is not without serious risk. That is the responsible thing to publish.
- dllthomas 6y ago
  > It really doesn't matter if he's the subject. It matters to some questions, not to others. The accusation up thread was ill treatment of a source. That's not what is happening, and that angle muddies the water. The question is what privacy we deserve, even when we choose to engage with society at large scale. It's worth discussing in water as clear as we can manage. > That is the responsible thing to publish. Sure, probably, lacking some aspect of Scott's identity that makes his full name important I think I agree.

jdashg 6y ago

It really doesn't matter if he's the subject. > It may surprise some readers to learn that "Scott Alexander" is a pseudonym. Alexander tells us that he omits his last name for privacy and safety reasons: > > I have a lot of reasons for staying pseudonymous. First, I’m a psychiatrist, and psychiatrists are kind of obsessive about preventing their patients from knowing anything about who they are outside of work. I am not one of the big sticklers on this, but I’m more of a stickler than “let the New York Times tell my patients where they can find my personal blog”. I think it’s plausible that if I became a national news figure under my real name, my patients – who run the gamut from far-left anarchists to far-right gun nuts – wouldn’t be able to engage with me in a normal therapeutic way. I also worry that my clinic would decide I am more of a liability than an asset and let me go, which would leave hundreds of patients in a dangerous situation as we tried to transition their care. > > The second reason is more prosaic: some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level. > These concerns are tragically well-founded: Alexander tells us he recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. While it's common to want to attach a real person to a pseudonym, piercing that veil publicly is not without serious risk. That is the responsible thing to publish.

dllthomas 6y ago
> It really doesn't matter if he's the subject. It matters to some questions, not to others. The accusation up thread was ill treatment of a source. That's not what is happening, and that angle muddies the water. The question is what privacy we deserve, even when we choose to engage with society at large scale. It's worth discussing in water as clear as we can manage. > That is the responsible thing to publish. Sure, probably, lacking some aspect of Scott's identity that makes his full name important I think I agree.