An open discussion about safe, anonymous blogging
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Jill
Most of us here are pretty experienced bloggers — how about an open discussion about safe, anonymous blogging? I don’t want to sound too much like a teen sex talk. (“I want you to be happy and safe and to enjoy yourself. You’re the one who knows best what you want and need to do. Here are some facts about how things work, and here’s how to protect yourself. [Much discussion ensues.] Remember, you can always come to me with questions or just to talk. I love you!”) But I do want us all to be safe and happy! And I do want us all to get what we need. I’m not anybody’s mama, though. We’re all adults. And we all care about our families, and it sounds like we’re all good, loving, caring people. So I’m going to throw a few things out here for consideration, and I’d be interested in hearing what you think about them.
Here are a couple of stepmom bloggers who had trouble staying anonymous:
- evil stepmother: The most meta post in the whole wide world – “‘Satan’ is a courtesy, not an insult, in case it is being taken as such.” (more) Evil stepmother seems warm, funny and wonderful, and even though her stepdaughter’s mom (“Satan”) found her blog, it sounds like things worked out all right between them. But that sentence still sticks in my head and makes me laugh every now and then.
- StepBlog: Goodbye, for now – StepBlog made one post about local politics, and people started to recognize her. She deleted that post and stopped blogging (at least here). If you haven’t heard of StepBlog, she’s great. It’s worth reading her archives. She helped me understand my own feelings better and figure out how to grow. She was my adopted virtual stepmom mentor, even though I don’t think she knew that. I still harbor hope that some day she will come back.
Here are a couple of sites that offer pointers on anonymous blogging:
- Memories Documented: Tips for the anonymous blogger
- optiniche: The Art of Anonymous Blogging
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)
The EFF also publishes helpful guidelines about laws that can affect anonymous bloggers:
- The Bloggers’ FAQ on Online Defamation provides an overview of defamation (libel) law, including a discussion of the constitutional and statutory privileges that may protect you.
- The Bloggers’ FAQ on Privacy addresses the legal issues surrounding the privacy rights of people you blog about.
(To give credit where credit is due, I copied and pasted the descriptions of those links straight from the EFF’s website.) These things are good to know for reference, just in case.
Here’s my blogging background:
I briefly blogged anonymously, but I don’t anymore because I noticed anonymous bloggers being found. I think it’s hard to stay anonymous over time, but I haven’t tested that theory out in any depth, so I don’t know that for sure. When I started using my full real name everywhere I found that I really liked it and that for me it was worth it, so I stuck with it. The first time a random acquaintance found me online it was an unsettling surprise. Eventually, I narrowed down the topics I blogged about, and slowly became more used to being found by people I know in real life. I like being found unexpectedly now. I’ve made new real-life friends through my blogs, and my family relationships have grown and deepened. I do filter what I write a little more, but not that much more. I try to tell the truth about the subjects I’ve chosen, although sometimes it takes time to get all the layers out. I try not to tell other people’s stories for them — that’s the real challenge I keep running up against blogging under my own name. I still talk about my feelings, though. I think anonymous blogging is a good choice for some situations. Using my real name is what fits right for me in my situation. Plus, I’m pretty risk-averse, and not that good at keeping secrets. And apparently I have something of an exhibitionist streak.
How about you?
What tips do you have? If you blog anonymously, what have your experiences been like and what advice would you give someone just starting out? If you don’t blog anonymously, why not, and what have your experiences been?
Interesting sites – definitely things to think about. I started out with intent to blog anonymously, but think I could have done a better job if I had thought about it more seriously right from the beginning.
I have since went back through and changed things like a different email and blocking search engines. I don’t give out my blog info, even to friends. I don’t use this identity anywhere but for blogging purposes only. And I’m definitely seriously considering going back and editing out things like locations and references to my job.
I don’t blog anonymously. Real life friends and family know where to find my blog. I started out blogging anonymously, but I find that I do better with my real name attached – what you said about not telling other people’s stories struck a chord with me. That’s one thing I sometimes struggle.
I don’t use my last name or publish my hometown at this point, although those that I have sent email to will know my last name. My parents still caution against things like that, as I am, you know, a “single mom with children living alone!” Don’t want any strangers tracking us down. Oh the horrors!
I don’t publish my children’s names, although I do post their ages and sometimes a photo of them. I’m not past the phobia about that one yet. I also don’t post names of other non-blogging family members/ex-family members or co-workers.
It will be interesting to see responses from others. I’ll be checking back.
In addition to the more obvious risks of blogging, there are also some more subtle insidious ones. If you take a look at this month’s (February) Wired magazine, pages 132-133, it shows some of the potential vulnerabilities of blogging (through mechanisms like data miners, text scrapers, spam blogs, and who knows what else coming down the pike). These things aren’t all necessarily “bad,” but I can envision scenarios where some of these mechanisms could result in undesirable consequences. But maybe I’m just Overly Paranoid?
I really enjoyed you post. I originally started to blog anonnomously but have faultered quite a bit. Now I mainly try to keep myself failr anonnomous and use mostly first names. I do have family who read my blog and many “online family” who do as well. There are certain people I would prefer not to find my blog but on the off chance it happens, I try to make sure that anything I post is true or stated as my opinion. I try to be as objective as I can but many times I get fired up. Can’t live life afraid of people not liking you, I guess. I just don’t advertise myself.
Hi Joy, it is great to see you here! I will look for that article. I don’t think you’re “Overly Paranoid”
— I want to read that article. It sounds interesting.
Hi Jill,
I blog anonymously because I talk a lot about the kids, and detail not only their personality traits, but also events in their lives. If I had to sanitize my entries out of respect for their privacy, the blogging wouldn’t serve its multiple purpose for me:
1. Safe outlet where I can actually say what I’m thinking and feeling in my own words, in my own way
2. Healing process of rumination & study
3. Self-fabricated comfort and entertainment, like an invisible friend
There are also some honest, angry, and not-so-admiring words about the bio mom on my blog, and if my blog weren’t anonymous, it would be damaging for the kids to come across that. I spend half my time (which is how often the kids are with us) in diplomatic censure, often not saying what I really think and often hiding my feelings about the things that challenge me that I know are sensitive to them. I need a place where I can let my hair down and say what I want, in the words I want to use, and then come to my own mature and constructive conclusions at the end of it. Or not.
I do enough things for other people. My blog is for ME, in all my petty, vindictive, selfish, cruel (and anonymous!) glory!!!
I blog both ways. One blog that is fairly anonymous and another that my friends and family have access to.
Very well written! And I like what you said. I am currently an annonymous blogger in that I don’t want to give out the names of my family members. Most of my family members know about my blog and occasionally visit, but I honestly feel that someday if my stepson were to encounter my blog, he may be hurt, but I think he would know that I am such an honest person anyway, anything I blog I would tell him to his face (when he was at an age where he would understand). I know from our relationship that I will be telling most of our stories (good and bad) over and over again. Thanks for the links.
I have never blogged annonymous, I never though I would need to. Until this year. I knew the BM had the website, I just knew that for years she never once went to it, so I thought I would be safe to use the webspace I pay for for my own personal thoughts and such. Well, that all changed when BM, when she came for her first in 5 years visit. She basically told me she has been reading my blog. It had it’s use, in the fact that she wanted to prove every word I wrote wrong to the point she behaved…. in public. But she reverted back to the mean hearted when the kids were alone with her. The oldest commented that he only went to her hotel out of respect to her, but hated how she was, how she would talk bad about us, etc.
After that little tid bit, I wanted to crawl under a rock. There went my personal space. Then I realized, she would win if I stopped blogging, I would blow a gasket if I stopped blogging. So, instead of dropping from the internet, I moved my site around. I put my personal section behind the scenes. Is it easy to find? Probably if you know me. Will she find it again, she probably has. And she is probably boiling at things I have writen since moving it. But me not knowing for a fact she is reading, I still feel safe to rant about her in my blog, even though it is open to the public.