8 ms·

Privacy-by-obscurity is still privacy. It seems absurd to argue that's equivalent to his name being front and center in the NYT of all things.

by Lammy 6y ago

tptacek 6y ago
Taking things from obscurity to publicity is literally part of the premise of journalism. Alexander cannot demand that journalists pretend that his identity is secret when it's not, not remotely, not even plausibly.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Scott is perfectly justified being upset when the NYT tries to parade his name around in a hit piece knowing (probably even hoping) their cancel-happy readers will run with it.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  > Alexander cannot demand that journalists pretend that his identity is secret when it's not, not remotely, not even plausibly. This isn’t what he asked for. As you note there’s pages of comments and Alexander’s own account on Substack now. Maybe you’re claiming he isn’t being honest about his requests from NYT.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    What is your take on what Alexander asked for?
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      That Alexander started the substack under his real name only after leaving his job is a pretty big hint that it wasn’t about “demand[ing] that journalists pretend that his identity is secret”.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        I don't want to guess at how this connects to the question I asked, so can you be more specific about what you think it was Alexander was asking of the New York Times? I think he was asking them not to disclose his identity. Do you think he was asking for something else?
        remarkEon 6y ago
        You're moving the goal posts here, pretty significantly. He didn't want them to disclose his identity, because he didn't want his patients to see his name blasted out in major media as that could potentially impact their care. This seems entirely reasonable, and well within the range of requests that NYT grants to many subjects of their articles. You can think it's unreasonable, because if you are trying to connect SSC to an IRL name you could find it, and that's fine. I don't, because I think Alexander should've been given the exact same deference NYT offers others.
        tptacek 6y ago
        I think we're going around in circles. Because Alexander's identity was not in fact private, I don't care why Alexander wanted the NYT to keep it out of the story, nor do I think there is any real-world norm obligating them to do so.
        remarkEon 6y ago
        Sure, you're free to ignore that one (of several) motivations was protecting his patients (which there absolutely is a real-world norm around). "My Doctor is the guy who writes SSC?" isn't a question he wanted asked. You're also free to ignore that NYT journalists do, quite often and as a norm, protect the identities of their sources and subjects of stories, and in this specific instance choose not to do so.
        tptacek 6y ago
        The whole idea that the NYT is somehow obliged to protect Alexander's patients is deeply weird. If protecting Alexander's patients was so important, Alexander shouldn't have been running this hugely popular blog using an identity so trivially connectable to those patients. Either way: it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Times.
- TheTrotters 6y ago
  That's plainly false. Those who tried to find Scott Alexander's real name could find it. But those who tried to find information about their doctor or colleague Scott Siskind most likely wouldn't find out that he writes a popular blog.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Yes, you could only obtain Scott Alexander's real name if you were a little bit interested in knowing what it was.
    - lliamander 6y ago
      But if you did a google search for his real name, his blog was not on the first page of results. Which was the main objective.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        That seems like it's more between Alexander and Google than between Alexander and the New York Times.
      - pseudalopex 6y ago
        Links to his blog were. People in the rationalist community used his real name when talking about his pseudonymous writing.
    - jdminhbg 6y ago
      The energy spent trying to miss the point here is kind of breathtaking. There existed a trivial mapping of A -> B. There did not exist a trivial mapping of B -> A. Scott was trying to prevent his patients, who had information B, from being bombarded with the link to A. It is not a hard concept to grasp.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        Yes, we have all heard this before, many, many times. The connection not being made here is why it is that a newspaper is obliged to care about this.
- lliamander 6y ago
  > Taking things from obscurity to publicity is literally part of the premise of journalism What a facile justification. By that metric there was nothing wrong with Gawker's antics. The question is always whether the things a journalist is publicizing in the public interest, and the fact that publications (especially prestigious ones) have an obligation to consider the impact of what they expose of citizens who often don't have an equal platform from which to defend themselves. The very fact that you can find his real name from his pseudonym means that the NYT wasn't actually "exposing" anything of value. At the same time, they've made it considerably harder (if not impossible) for him to practice normal psychiatric medicine. Also, does this article even cover what it was originally supposed to be about - i.e. a bunch of people online who saw COVID coming long before the authorities? I haven't gone all the way through, but my understanding is no. Instead there's no so subtle implication that the guy who wrote the "Anti Neoreactionary FAQ" may in fact a secret nazi or something.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Respectfully, I doubt a lot that any of us know what this article was "supposed to be about".
    - lliamander 6y ago
      Well, that was the justification Cade Maetz provided when he was asking around about Scott initially. Are you saying we shouldn't take the author at his word?

Privacy-by-obscurity is still privacy. It seems absurd to argue that's equivalent to his name being front and center in the NYT of all things.

by Lammy 6y ago

Privacy-by-obscurity is still privacy. It seems absurd to argue that's equivalent to his name being front and center in the NYT of all things.

tptacek 6y ago

Taking things from obscurity to publicity is literally part of the premise of journalism. Alexander cannot demand that journalists pretend that his identity is secret when it's not, not remotely, not even plausibly.

Lammy 6y ago
Scott is perfectly justified being upset when the NYT tries to parade his name around in a hit piece knowing (probably even hoping) their cancel-happy readers will run with it.
remarkEon 6y ago
> Alexander cannot demand that journalists pretend that his identity is secret when it's not, not remotely, not even plausibly. This isn’t what he asked for. As you note there’s pages of comments and Alexander’s own account on Substack now. Maybe you’re claiming he isn’t being honest about his requests from NYT.
- tptacek 6y ago
  What is your take on what Alexander asked for?
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    That Alexander started the substack under his real name only after leaving his job is a pretty big hint that it wasn’t about “demand[ing] that journalists pretend that his identity is secret”.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      I don't want to guess at how this connects to the question I asked, so can you be more specific about what you think it was Alexander was asking of the New York Times? I think he was asking them not to disclose his identity. Do you think he was asking for something else?
      - remarkEon 6y ago
        You're moving the goal posts here, pretty significantly. He didn't want them to disclose his identity, because he didn't want his patients to see his name blasted out in major media as that could potentially impact their care. This seems entirely reasonable, and well within the range of requests that NYT grants to many subjects of their articles. You can think it's unreasonable, because if you are trying to connect SSC to an IRL name you could find it, and that's fine. I don't, because I think Alexander should've been given the exact same deference NYT offers others.
        tptacek 6y ago
        I think we're going around in circles. Because Alexander's identity was not in fact private, I don't care why Alexander wanted the NYT to keep it out of the story, nor do I think there is any real-world norm obligating them to do so.
        remarkEon 6y ago
        Sure, you're free to ignore that one (of several) motivations was protecting his patients (which there absolutely is a real-world norm around). "My Doctor is the guy who writes SSC?" isn't a question he wanted asked. You're also free to ignore that NYT journalists do, quite often and as a norm, protect the identities of their sources and subjects of stories, and in this specific instance choose not to do so.
        tptacek 6y ago
        The whole idea that the NYT is somehow obliged to protect Alexander's patients is deeply weird. If protecting Alexander's patients was so important, Alexander shouldn't have been running this hugely popular blog using an identity so trivially connectable to those patients. Either way: it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Times.
TheTrotters 6y ago
That's plainly false. Those who tried to find Scott Alexander's real name could find it. But those who tried to find information about their doctor or colleague Scott Siskind most likely wouldn't find out that he writes a popular blog.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Yes, you could only obtain Scott Alexander's real name if you were a little bit interested in knowing what it was.
  - lliamander 6y ago
    But if you did a google search for his real name, his blog was not on the first page of results. Which was the main objective.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      That seems like it's more between Alexander and Google than between Alexander and the New York Times.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Links to his blog were. People in the rationalist community used his real name when talking about his pseudonymous writing.
  - jdminhbg 6y ago
    The energy spent trying to miss the point here is kind of breathtaking. There existed a trivial mapping of A -> B. There did not exist a trivial mapping of B -> A. Scott was trying to prevent his patients, who had information B, from being bombarded with the link to A. It is not a hard concept to grasp.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Yes, we have all heard this before, many, many times. The connection not being made here is why it is that a newspaper is obliged to care about this.
lliamander 6y ago
> Taking things from obscurity to publicity is literally part of the premise of journalism What a facile justification. By that metric there was nothing wrong with Gawker's antics. The question is always whether the things a journalist is publicizing in the public interest, and the fact that publications (especially prestigious ones) have an obligation to consider the impact of what they expose of citizens who often don't have an equal platform from which to defend themselves. The very fact that you can find his real name from his pseudonym means that the NYT wasn't actually "exposing" anything of value. At the same time, they've made it considerably harder (if not impossible) for him to practice normal psychiatric medicine. Also, does this article even cover what it was originally supposed to be about - i.e. a bunch of people online who saw COVID coming long before the authorities? I haven't gone all the way through, but my understanding is no. Instead there's no so subtle implication that the guy who wrote the "Anti Neoreactionary FAQ" may in fact a secret nazi or something.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Respectfully, I doubt a lot that any of us know what this article was "supposed to be about".
  - lliamander 6y ago
    Well, that was the justification Cade Maetz provided when he was asking around about Scott initially. Are you saying we shouldn't take the author at his word?