The death of the private citizen?
I saw a comment on Twitter that what you&#x27;re really seeing here is dueling philosophies, and I agree.<p>Ever heard the expression, Sunshine is the best disinfectant? I think you&#x27;re seeing it&#x27;s logical endpoint with the SSC story. And while it seems to have fallen out of fashion, for the most part, I agree.<p>It seems to me that no matter where you turn, when it comes to &#x27;the truth and nothing but the truth&#x27; about someone or something, you face bad choices.<p>The problem with allowing some people to be pseudonymous sometimes is that immediately all kinds of bad actors will rush in and try to claim that in their defense. Polluters claiming anonymity because they don&#x27;t want to be targeted by eco-terrorists, for example. Rather than parsing ever-smaller hair-thin rules about - legitimate - illegitimate - legitimate - and getting docked on every one on charges of political bias - there&#x27;s an easier solution. Give no one pseudonymity. Problem solved.<p>The only exception - national security - doesn&#x27;t require your agreement to accept; it just takes a willingness to not go to jail. It&#x27;s an appeal to power, really. So you don&#x27;t have to debate it on moral grounds, it&#x27;s the law.<p>Incidentally, for all those stories where the NYT allowed pseudonyms, I agree there was an inconsistency, but my conclusion was: resolve it by publishing them all. Publish Bansky&#x27;s name, publish Ferrante&#x27;s name, publish the name of whoever wrote that tell-all book. Make that the norm, instead of half-applied psuedonyms.<p>Now if you arranged an interview with them about something other than their identity, and they agreed to talk to you on condition of you not revealing it - that&#x27;s different. That news outlet can&#x27;t break the story. But another one can. No exceptions. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.<p>I do believe this in principle, believed it long before this story broke, and could be brought around to disallowing most anyone&#x27;s pseudonymity, before this news became news. It doesn&#x27;t matter to me at all what the content or leaning of the blog is. Whether they&#x27;re left or right or &#x27;good&#x27; or &#x27;bad&#x27; - I believe in the secular version of &#x27;you shall know the truth &amp; the truth shall set you free.&#x27;<p>There is a cost, a real human one. But, rather like capitalism and democracy, it happens to be less than every other alternative. It&#x27;s not great that people can&#x27;t be pseudonymous - but it prevents worse problems.