Pseudonym-Americans Fight Back

When Facebook deleted my account and I decided to fight back, I had no idea what I started. I was pleasantly surprised by the groundswell of support I got from the blogosphere, even from people who use their real names. The response was so overwhelming that Facebook reversed its decision within hours and restored my account. Unwittingly, I seem to have tapped into feelings that have been bubbling under the surface for a long time. For too long Pseudonym-Americans like myself, and all the pseudonymous people of the world, have lived in the shadows. For too long we have been relegated to the back of the serial bus. Well, those days are over. I am somebody, just not exactly who I say I am, and I say it loud: I'm a Pseudonym-American and I'm proud.

Pseudonym-Americans are not asking for special rights. We are just asking for the freedom to be who we are not. We are people just like you. Some of us use pseudonyms because we have real jobs. Some of us use pseudonyms because there are arrest warrants against us or we are fleeing creditors. Some of us are pseudonymous for no reason at all. We come from all walks of life. We are your brothers and sisters, your parents and children, your friends and colleagues. That person sitting in the cubicle next to you could be a Pseudonym-American and you wouldn't even know it. All we are saying is that what we do on the computer in the privacy of our own basements or offices is nobody's business but our own and Homeland Security's.

Sure, there are times when I wish that Internet marketers had all my demographic data attached to my real name so that they could target ads at me more effectively. We all want that at one time or another. I would love to help Facebook gather a file on all the music I download and the movies I watch and the books I say I read (but really don't) and the candidates I support and the things I buy. I know that Facebook just has my best interests at heart. And I know that Google, which knows everything I search for (and please let me explain some of those searches in case they are misconstrued), is only out to do good in the world. Isn't their motto "Be excellent to each other," or something like that?

But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Today, Facebook may want to know your real name and your real age, but next they are going to want to know your real weight or your real height. Then they are going to want to see pictures of you that aren't 20 years old or haven't been touched up in Photoshop. Where will it all end? And even though Facebook may be a trustworthy and morally unassailable corporation, that doesn't mean that every one one of its employees is a saint, as some have discovered. Pseudonym-Americans are not just fighting for our own rights. We are fighting for your rights, too.

Not everybody understands. "People who disguise their identity in e-mail or public forums lack integrity, maturity and courage," writes Scott McKeen in The Edmonton Journal. There was a time when I would not have confronted such blatent bigotry and unprovoked vitriol against the pseudonymous. But now it makes me mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Did Publius lack "integrity, maturity and courage," Mr. McKeen? Publius was the pseudonym Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay used when they wrote The Federalist Papers. What about Senex, who many people believe was Patrick Henry? Or Phocion, better know as Alexander Hamilton? Without these great Pseudonym-Americans the United States would not exist or, even worse, might be part of Canada today. Indeed, many great men and women in history used pseudonyms at one time or another. I don't think François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire) was a coward. And Marion Morrison, despite his very effeminate sounding name, was more of a man than Scott McKeen will ever be. At least when he called himself John Wayne. Perhaps we Pseudonym-Americans would feel better about ourselves if we knew how many great people in history, and how many accomplished people today, are just like us. Unfortunately, they don't usually teach this in schools.

For many Pseudonym-Americans, the only place we feel completely comfortable is on the Internet. Pseudonym-Americans don't have support groups or even bars we can go to to meet each other. Many of us have never met in person, as far as we know. But in the blogosphere, on social networks, in online games and virtual reality worlds and other places on the Internet we have found a home.

Now some tech "visionaries" want to take even that away from us. They have given it a fancy name: "Transparency," which is tech talk for "kiss your privacy good-bye." What "transparency" really is is a direct assault on our way of life. Feel free to Twitter to the world what you ate for breakfast or blog about the cute thing your soon-to-be embarrassed and resentful child did the other day, but those of us who don't have boring lives or non-controversial opinions value our privacy, and we would prefer that you leave us alone.

This week I learned a lot. I learned that I have some wonderful friends in the blogosphere even if I don't know all their real names. I learned that it's a lot easier to get a company that is really afraid of bad publicity to change its mind than it is to be a monk fighting against a well-armed dictatorship in a country nobody cares about. And I learned that being a Pseudonym-American is nothing to be ashamed of.

I think it's time for Pseudonym-Americans and pseudonymous people of all the nations in the world to stand up and not be counted. Pseudonymous people of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your names. And those aren't even real.

Illustration borrowed from "Anonymity and Privacy in the Electronic World" by Mari Korkea-aho.

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