
Don't De-Anonymize Scott Alexander - mxschumacher
https://www.dontdoxscottalexander.com/
======
detaro
previous about the same story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23610416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23610416)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23626449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23626449)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23621466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23621466)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23617887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23617887)

------
CuriousReader13
Can anyone please ELI5 what this is about? What does the phrase "Slate Star
Codex" mean? Now that all his blog posts were gone, what topics had he
generally written about that attracted so much attention?

~~~
sillysaurusx
Scott said that the NYT was going to publish a piece containing his real name,
so he deleted his blog (slate star codex) which at this is point famous.

Plot twist: Scott's real name has been easily findable for at least a year,
based on his own words. So I don't understand why he went full nuclear.

It's also an assumption by everybody that the NYT article was going to be a
hit piece, even though there's no evidence of that whatsoever. It was simply
going to contain his real name. Scott didn't want that. Therefore Scott
deleted his entire 5-8 year history because the big bad NYT was going to do
something that Scott didn't like that totally wouldn't impact his life anyway.

Look, I'm a big proponent of anonymity. Heck, I _was_ pseudonymous for years.
Sometimes there are valid reasons. But often, it becomes a perpetual thing of
"I'm doing this for the sake of doing it, not because people are out to get
me."

Scott also recently published a piece raising questions about racism (a good
piece, worth reading, but nonetheless ruffled some feathers). So this is
possibly a well-timed deflection move.

~~~
kreetx
Read the single article on his blog, he is not anywhere near fully nuclear.
He's just playing a fair game with them, helping NYT "be more considerate".
What would they get from this real name policy anyway?

Secondly, the content is not gone, just hidden (and probably reachable
elsewhere).

~~~
mumblemumble
This paragraph puts it succinctly. Especially the last sentence:

 _When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he said that it was New York
Times policy to include real names, and he couldn’t change that. After
considering my options, I decided on the one you see now. If there’s no blog,
there’s no story. Or at least the story will have to include some discussion
of NYT’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks._

------
krick
This was unexpected (never would occur to me he is a controversial media-
person, even though I don't agree with most of what he writes myself), and a
pity, since I still have a bunch on his blogposts on my to-read list, that now
appear to be gone, but what I actually don't understand is why journalists
still have so much freedom to harass people. I'm pretty sure these pesky
parasites are responsible for more total length of nerves burnt, than all
robbers combined. Is there really no legal action that an ordinary, not
massively rich person could realistically take against NYT in such cases?

~~~
Viliam1234
Being an asshole is often not illegal. The law would be incredibly suffocating
if we tried to legislate away everything unpleasant. Also, different
subcultures or social classes have different norms; it would be hard to define
one model of nice behavior for everyone.

Usually, there is a social punishment for being an asshole. You are not
legally required to be nice to people, but the natural punishment is that the
nice people will avoid you, you won't get invited to nice parties, etc. The
"karmic punishment" for assholes is that they can only associate with other
assholes, because everyone else tries to avoid them. Also, unless they are
physically very strong, they probably get punched a lot, as a natural
reaction.

There are situations, such as online journalism, where the usual mechanisms
punishing the assholes do not apply, and it can even become a source of
income.

------
abetusk
Vice doxxed Naomi Wu a little while back [1]. It seems like reporters are
increasingly becoming unethical to push their stories forward (or maybe they
were always this unethical?).

[1]
[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/127566532567417241...](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1275665325674172417)

~~~
mcphage
> or maybe they were always this unethical?

The term “Yellow Journalism” is a hundred years old, and I doubt it was new
then, either.

~~~
Viliam1234
In this case, the journalism isn't the thing that changed. It was also
possible to dox someone 100 years ago. But unless it was an important person,
people would read the paper and quickly forget it.

With search engines, if someone is doxed once, you can find it years later
when you search their name. The same behavior now has more serious
consequences.

------
bathtub365
Is this “real name policy” documented anywhere public? I was under the
impression that journalists protected confidential sources all the time and a
policy of revealing identities could be ruinous to a newspaper’s ability to
shine a light on activity happening behind closed doors.

~~~
samfriedman
There is a difference between someone who is a confidential source on a story,
and someone who is the subject of a story - it appears the NYT argue that
those who are a story's subject are fair game for full-naming. However people
have found a number of past stories which respect subjects' wishes for
pseudonyms or anonymity, so it appears to be a rule that is unevenly enforced
at best.

~~~
mumblemumble
I am going to give the NYT itself the benefit of the doubt and guess that, if
there is a policy, it's not one that says that reporters must use real names
in situations like this. One would hope that it actually says that reporters
MAY use real names, at their discretion.

That said, considering what a crappy track record the press has with
respecting the privacy of pseudonymous Internet personalities (I'm thinking
Naomi Wu, sure, but also that one article where the author shamelessly put way
way way too much work into trying to track down and out _why), perhaps that's
pollyannaish of me.

------
jordanpg
SA was being interviewed for an article -- was this detail not discussed
beforehand?

Did the NYT violate an informal agreement not to use his real name?

Could SA have reasonably expected that a reporter would not _trivially_ find
his real name as part of routine research, and thus include it as background?

SA's wishes should be respected by NYT -- the piece should be abandoned -- but
his judgement on entering into an interview in the first place is
questionable.

~~~
hirundo
The interview started with his request that they not disclose his full name.
When the reporter declined, contacted his editor and declined again, the
interview went no further. They told him they would run the story and disclose
his name either way.

~~~
jordanpg
That narrative is not expressed in the post here:
[https://slatestarcodex.com/](https://slatestarcodex.com/)

Where does your account come from?

If I had to infer what happened from SA's post, it is that he agreed to an
interview, did the interview, learned that they intended to use his name, and
then raised these objections.

~~~
hirundo
> But when Metz reached out, Alexander says, he wanted to discuss not these
> controversies, but the community SSC had built, in a largely positive way.
> Issues, however, emerged almost immediately.

> "He never got around to asking me questions because I started with asking if
> the article would include my real name and we didn't get past our argument
> on that subject," Alexander told the Free Beacon by email. "I explained
> almost word for word the same things I explained on my recent post. He said
> he would talk to his editor, then came back saying that his editor said the
> article couldn't be published without my real name. He said he was really
> sorry about this and I believe him."

[https://freebeacon.com/media/well-known-blogger-shuts-
down-s...](https://freebeacon.com/media/well-known-blogger-shuts-down-site-
for-fear-of-nyt-doxxing/)

------
IHLayman
A petition about protecting pseudonymity... and a full name is required to
sign it.

~~~
OscarCunningham
It's not analogous because signing this doesn't link your real name to any
other names you might use.

~~~
IHLayman
I am under the impression that they expect a real name. In fact, they give a
section to allow further proof in case you are someone famous, so that someone
isn't trying to impersonate you:

"Let us know it's actually you? (Optional) For high-profile signees (CEOs,
authors, people with 100k+ twitter followers, etc), we'd like to make sure
nobody is impersonating you. Feel free to give us an official email address to
confirm (we will not use it for any purpose beyond validation and will not
share it with anyone), or link to a public post/tweet where you say you signed
this petition."

~~~
OscarCunningham
Sure. My point is that signing this with your real name doesn't thereby
deanonimize anything else. People will be able to associate your real name
with the petition, but nothing else.

------
blondin
i am having a hard time with this one. really. this is getting blown out of
all proportions. seeing some names there is very surprising to me!

~~~
lhnz
He is constantly harrassed and smeared on Twitter so it's unsurprising that he
doesn't want this turned up to 11 by the NYT.

------
statictype
I don’t really understand this. You can literally find his name by just asking
Google for it. Isnt it already deanonymized?

Or is this about some larger point?

~~~
mumblemumble
I'm guessing it's about some much smaller point.

His employer is probably very unlikely to decide one day to idly google,
"slate star codex author real name", figure out that it's him, and make any
major decisions based on what they find.

However, almost any employer, upon finding itself unexpectedly exposed to
frothy-mouthed Internet rancor as a result of a major news outlet writing a
story about the online persona of one of its employees, would at least
seriously consider firing them over it.

~~~
mumblemumble
Another thought: this sort of thing has the potential to seriously harm his
relationship with his clients. In a way that could be professionally damaging
for him, yes, but, even more importantly, could adversely affect the health of
his clients.

------
hollerith
I signed the petition.

------
vlz
This seems to be the context:

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-
my-...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-
revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/)

~~~
leadingthenet
Noooooooooooooooo....

------
nl
He goes by his own full name in a published book, and his chapter names the
blog he deleted in the very first sentence.

Why wasn't the outrage over that? Is that because it's a Rationalist Community
book, whereas the New York Times is Outgroup?

