> Withholding the identity of a public figure - especially someone who actively attempts to be an influential public figure - is not in their readers' interests

> Withholding the identity of a public figure - especially someone who actively attempts to be an influential public figure - is not in their readers' interests. What is the public interest justification for making his legal name a part of his identity in this case? Its not as though his legal name is relevant to the subject of the article. > There is nothing unusual about identifying public figures; it's valuable to the public to know who is behind public actions. This is a very interesting way to frame “having a blog”. Calling some blogger a public figure makes it seem like he’s a senator or something. Even moreso when you call a blog post a “public action” like its an act of congress or executive order. > It's nothing like doxxing, the author knows it, and so do HN readers. This is false. No one is confused or misled by the quite conventional use of “dox” to refer to a nonconsensual public revelation of the legal name of someone who was formerly known by a pseudonym to the majority of the public. > The NYT wasn't going to provide his home address and social security number. No, no one is that stupid. Rather we all understand that the NYT was going to put his legal name in their article, which was going to lead to marginally more opportunities for crazy people to mess with him. Since he’s already got crazy people messing with him, any marginal increase in opportunity is likely to lead to an increase in incidents. > It's dishonest of the author to say otherwise. Yeah I’m not seeing where he claimed that. Clearly the NYT isn’t going to expose themselves to any kind of lawsuit by publishing his address, and the threat vector comes from some malevolent actor using the name on a search engine to find the address themselves. I’m not sure how this inference escapes anyone literate enough to wade through one of scott’s articles. > Again, if he is the smart person he claims to be, he knows it and did it intentionally. Everyone on HN would know it. It's dishonest to act surprised Dude clearly does not think he is smart, his entire existence is an attempt to magnify his intellect with recursive use of instrumental reason. Besides its naive in 2020 to think that anyone, least of all “smart” people, do not have the same impulse control issues that normal people have. And there have been so many incidents of people causing actual harm to themselves and others through impulsive online behavior that there are books about it now, theres no real reason to consider siskind to be some evil mastermind thinking to himself “what’s bigger than having my real name and my blog in the NYT? Forcing the NYT to not write about me by summoning the entire internet <evil laugh>“ > It's also well-known that powerful people in Silicon Valley are actively engaged in a power play against the news media, also attempting to discredit it. I'm confident that the author knows that very well and knows that his actions will play a part in it. To ignore that is not honest; to claim it is coincidence seems hard to believe. (Also, the news media is a critical part of democracy and an open society; it's not clear the good of society, rather than the narrow interests of powerful people in SV, is on his mind.) Its well known that powerful people in the media are actively engaged in a power play against businesses (particularly sv) and attempting to discredit them. I’m confident you’re well aware of this and know that your reply has its own small role in the discussion. Also the technology to be heard, and strong norms towards privacy are key parts of democracy and an open society rather than the narrow interests of legacy media platforms that you seem to regard as representative of us all. > Most of this claims are unverified and he offers no evidence. There's no reason I should trust him, especially given the dishonesty I already see. Its a personal account, you haven’t identified anything that would even conceivably have a reference elsewhere. Is he supposed to record his phone call and put it online for you? Your earlier examples of dishonesty are not really worthy of the term. > Finally, playing the victim card is a strong signal, IMHO, of an attempt to manipulate. IMHO playing the persecutor card is a poorly thought response to an individual “playing the victim card” as you say. Perhaps next time don’t bother?