Blogger Defends Outing Politician Trolling His Comments

from the the-debate-is-on dept

We recently had a post by Tim Geigner, questioning whether it was appropriate for a local blog, Blog for Arizona, to out one of its crazier comment trolls as local politician John Huppenthal. There was a good debate in the comments as to the appropriateness of such actions. Bob Lord, of BFA, asked if we would be interested in posting his response. Here it is.

Was Blog for Arizona out of line for outing John Huppenthal as an anonymous commenter, as Mr. Geigner suggests in his recent post?

In this specific case, absolutely not. Among other things, Huppenthal invited us to publish his comments; he was so careless that his identity could be ascertained from the comments themselves, with no reference to the IP addresses we had, and he was posting from a government agency, which would be required to divulge the sites he visited if asked.

Let's put all that aside and approach the more fundamental question: How secure should a John Huppenthal be in his anonymity? He cited the Founding Fathers, several of who wrote anonymously when penning the Federalist Papers.

But the issue here is not the right to anonymous speech. Nobody disputes that right. The issue is whether there is a right to anonymous speech with zero risk of being exposed, even if the speaker is a public figure.

In our judicial system, very few rights are absolute. Why? Because there are competing interests.

For example, public figures do not receive the same level of protection from defamatory statements as ordinary citizens do. If I publish an unfavorable statement against Joe Sixpack, Joe only need show the statement was false in a suit for defamation. But if I make the same statement about an elected official, he has to show not only that the statement was false, but that I made it with reckless disregard for the truth. Why the difference? Because of the competing interest. As a society we don't want people with information about public figures to be overly fearful of coming forward.

If we were to attempt absolute protection of the anonymity of public figures in their online comments, we necessarily would have to encroach upon the freedom of the press and the associated protection of confidentiality of sources. Suppose Blog for Arizona did not expose Huppenthal directly, but instead had one of our writers speak off the record to a reporter, who then called Huppenthal out based on a confidential source and asked Huppenthal to request that Blog for Arizona publicize all its information. Huppenthal would have no practical choice but to comply, or just fess up. So, unless we're willing to encroach upon the freedom of the press, the protection of anonymous commenters could not be complete to the degree Mr. Geigner desires.

Now, consider the issue from the perspective of the blogger. I have knowledge that an elected official who is up for re-election, John Huppenthal, is a racist who believes the Holocaust was more the work of Darwin than of Hitler. Should I have no ability to let the public know what Huppenthal is all about? Perhaps, but only if Blog for Arizona and I had guaranteed Mr. Huppenthal that his anonymity would be protected. Otherwise, imposing some sort of legal gag order on bloggers does not seem the way to go.

The bottom line: We don't need to make it any easier for creeps like John Huppenthal to go undetected. A risk of detection is inherent in anonymous speech. Whatever chilling effect arises from the outing of a Huppenthal, a chilling effect that I submit is minor or non-existent, is outweighed by the value to the public of the outing.

Filed Under: anonymity, arizona, comments, john huppenthal, politics

Local Blog Outs Local Politician's Crazy But Anonymous Comments. So...Is That Okay?

from the nobody-to-defend dept

While we've talked in the past about whether or not a blog or publication should out a previously anonymous commenter if the outting would be newsworthy, it's worth noting that there was no real consensus reached amongst the venerated Techdirt community. Some of us think that there might be room for such a move. Others, such as myself, take more of a hard line approach to protecting anonymity (see the comments section in the link above for what I'd say is a really nice discussion on the question). Either way, with the widespread blogosphere and public participation in online communities only ratcheting ever-higher, it's useful to bring stories to the table to discuss how this all works when such events do occur.

This latest example is about John Huppenthal, Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction and apparent frequent anonymous commenter at Blog For Arizona. Bob Lord, of BFA, recently penned a post that outs Huppenthal for his previously anonymous and simultaneously insane comments on the site.

Okay, for the few of you who have not figured this out yet, by all indication our friend Thucky is John Huppenthal, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, which is the fifth highest elected office in the state. This may be a first. I don't know of any other elected official who has led a double life as a serial blog troll besides John Huppenthal. Chalk that up to Arizona having the market cornered on political craziness, I guess.

The post then outs Huppenthal for commenting anonymously there, on other conservative sites, and for creating duplicate handles all over the place in order to fake some kind of consensus around what he says. And what he was saying, analysis indicates, is batshit crazy. Such as:

-"bat shit crazy stuff"!!! Its in Obamas book, Obama said he was born in Kenya!!!! If this were a Republican, you would be going nuts demanding those college records.

-Hitler worked to eliminate the Jews. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood was given the job of eliminating African Americans. Hitler fed 6 million Jews into the ovens. Sanger has fed 16 million African Americans into the abortion mills.

-No spanish radio stations, no spanish billboards, no spanish tv, no spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English.

Now, it's worth noting that Huppenthal has since acknowledged that he did indeed make those comments under several different names, speaking of and to himself in the third person. That acknowledgement was followed up with something about believing in public discourse, regretting certain inflammatory words (Hitler! Kenya!), but hoping that we should all recognize that our great country has a long history of anonymous speech from politicians.

And...I happen to think he's right on that last point. Look, Huppenthal is a blowhard, fact-ignoring caricature of a politician on one end of the political spectrum. He's not representative of anything other than his own idiocy, but the sites he went to offered anonymous commenting and then pulled the rug out from under him when they decided that his commenting was a story. They're not wrong; Huppenthal's online antics and self-sock-puppetry is indeed a story, but does that story outweigh the fallout from the removal of anonymity? I would say no. Others, including other writers here at Techdirt, might say yes. I'm more interested in what you all think, anonymous or otherwise.

Filed Under: anonymity, arizona, bob lord, john huppenthal, journalism, newsworthy, politicians, privacy