The Practical Matter Privacy vs. Anonymity.

Is anonymous blogging, done as a professional with all attendant professional rights and privileges, unethical? This paper frames and unpacks the arguments in support of such practices using a series of debates within librarianship -- presented here in its context as an educative information profession within American democratic society. In other words, this is an exploration of a practical-theoretical issue on the ground, not a philosophical parsing of the arguments. The initial spark for these debates was familiar: the right/left political-cultural wars. But it quickly became apparent that the prime hot button issue was the questioning of the practice of blogging anonymously and the defense of that stance as a right and privilege enjoyed as an information professional. These defenses reviewed are the overriding social good to be protected in anonymous professional speech; anonymity as a right, primarily in the form of intellectual freedom rights and free speech; anonymity as a variant of a right of privacy; and as professional speech which stands on its own with or without an author contributing to professional discourse and democratic goods. Each justification tends to strengthen the other, but when contextualized and unpacked, these arguments obviate many of the goods they claim to protect. We stand little chance of parsing some of the more notorious instances of anonymous discourse in broader social media fora if we cannot make an ethical case against these practices in an educative information profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]