Anonymous Speech Research Articles

Levinas contra la política sagrada del amor. Una contestación a Simon Critchley

In the 1953 “Freedom and command, Emmanuel Levinas reflect on the problem of free command and tyrannical action, based on some classic answers in the history of philosophy. Among them, Levinas highlights a particular resolution of modernity, the possibility of will impose to itself a written command as a guarantee of its freedom. He refers to the self-determination of will in the form of Law and State. However, the philosopher recognize the dormant danger in this resolution: the risk of reification of the written command as an impersonal reason, as an anonymous speech, and with it, the conversion of this work into a new tiranny. Levinas sustains that subordination of will to the written command requires discourse as the encounter of man with man, what he calls «religion». The present article aims to understand the meaning of what Levinas sustains in his text of 1953, through a comparative lecture to the one proposed by Simon Critchley about an ethic of commitment and a politics of resistance based on the experience of faith and love.

Viral sticks, virtual stones: addressing anonymous hate speech online

ABSTRACT Woods and Ruscher examine hate speech as a multifaceted phenomenon that has adapted to novel communication contexts and opportunities. In particular, online communication represents a growing opportunity for individuals to engage in anonymous hate speech, a situation that merits additional research for several reasons. The authors posit, first, that this specific type of hate speech warrants focused research because it may not altogether fit into pre-established categories of hate speech events, a matter that may have implications for the likelihood of legal censure. Second, this incarnation of hate speech may be best understood in terms of constitutive harms, relative to other harms, that are themselves understudied. Finally, anonymous hate speech online may inflict unique and additional harms by virtue of the unique context of the Internet and the ease of anonymity for perpetrators. Woods and Ruscher provide an overview of research on the types and harms of hate speech, and a consideration of the impact both of anonymity and of the Internet on these harms, as well as describe an illustrative example of a type of hate speech online that is often anonymous—derogatory Internet memes—in an effort to encourage further research into this novel incarnation of words that wound.

‘Stress-testing’ the system: speculations on the Hong Kong protests from afar

ABSTRACT Protests in Hong Kong have seen a significant evolution – from the Queen’s Pier campaign of 2007 to the Occupy movement of 2014, and then to the summer of 2019 – in the concepts of both leadership and space. Conventional political agitations are territory, demand- and leadership-driven, typically mounted against the presumption of an orthodox democratic state apparatus. This basic presumption may however need to be revised both in the light of the new character of the ‘tactically extended’ state, as well as the ensuing populisms that allow a narrow and often culturally gated civil society to arrogate to itself the right to speak for the ‘people’ as a whole. In response to transformations in the very apparatus of governmentality, political protests have queried the concept of citizenship itself (and thus also queried its most visible representations, including those of leadership and authorship), and have turned their tactics instead to amorphous, even invisible, modes of leadership alongside post-Occupy definitions of amorphous and undefined space. This essay is in part a personal account, taking from conversations and texts produced in Hong Kong and India between 2015 and 2020, and it draws substantially on how Hong Kong’s ‘be water’ tactic was viewed in India in late 2019. As the protests began in Delhi against the Citizenship Amendment Act, India saw its own experiments, historical discoveries and transborder similarities, around anonymous subjects and invisible speech, meme-forms and other meanings produced entirely through circulation. It also saw the return of the radical analogue in the context of punitive internet shutdowns.

Addressing Misinformation on Whatsapp in India Through Intermediary Liability Policy, Platform Design Modification, and Media Literacy

Abstract Through a case study of lynchings in India that are perceived to have been catalyzed by misinformation on WhatsApp, this article explores how policymakers can mitigate social media misinformation without compromising public discourse. We evaluate the costs and benefits of three approaches to managing misinformation: intermediary liability reform, changes to platform design, and public information endeavors addressing user attitudes and behaviors. We find that while current media literacy endeavors seem somewhat misdirected, more locally attuned initiatives might productively address the underlying susceptibility to misinformation while avoiding the free speech compromises that come with stringent liability rules and restrictions on anonymous speech.

Addressing Misinformation on Whatsapp in India Through Intermediary Liability Policy, Platform Design Modification, and Media Literacy

Abstract Through a case study of lynchings in India that are perceived to have been catalyzed by misinformation on WhatsApp, this article explores how policymakers can mitigate social media misinformation without compromising public discourse. We evaluate the costs and benefits of three approaches to managing misinformation: intermediary liability reform, changes to platform design, and public information endeavors addressing user attitudes and behaviors. We find that while current media literacy endeavors seem somewhat misdirected, more locally attuned initiatives might productively address the underlying susceptibility to misinformation while avoiding the free speech compromises that come with stringent liability rules and restrictions on anonymous speech.

Sincerely, Anonymous.

This paper provides an account of anonymous speech treated as anonymized speech. It is argued that anonymous speech acts are best defined by reference to intentional acts of blocking a speaker's identification as opposed to the various epistemic effects that imperfectly correlate with these actions. The account is used to examine two important subclasses of anonymized speech: speech using pseudonyms, and speech anonymized in a specifically communicative manner. Several pragmatic and ethical issues with anonymized speech are considered.

Campaign Finance Disclosure

Campaign finance disclosure is the last (somewhat) robust regulation we have in American campaign finance, and it is under threat. We urgently need more research on disclosure. Regulatory complexity makes studying campaign finance disclosure daunting. It also creates so-called dark money and anonymous speech online. Scholars must understand the existing regulatory loopholes as they plan studies to avoid biased estimates and understand the conditions in which their results generalize to a broader population. The court's disclosure jurisprudence is thin and based on largely unproven assumptions. As the research on campaign finance disclosure matures, scholars should take a broad view of the costs and benefits of disclosure, rather than the narrow, court-led focus many studies have had until now. We must also take seriously the ways in which cognitive limitations can limit the benefits of disclosure. I explain the doctrine and review existing studies, highlighting opportunities to expand the literature.

Thwarting Malicious Assaults on Democracy: A Compelling Role for Big Data Analytics

This paper proposes a patriotic/statesman application for big data analytics. A legal, regulatory and political economy/policy analysis examines malicious assaults on two mechanisms of American democracy. First, counterfeit notice and comment (informal) rulemaking and second, election meddling by adversarial foreign entities. Big data architectures are analyzed under existing law, including, inter alia, election mechanics regulation, administrative procedure as supplemented by prohibitions against fraud, conspiracy, impersonation, and money-laundering. Remediation is proposed (anonymous speech exceptions, social media regulation, mandatory regulator analytical research) as inspired by big data analytics methods, including, inter alia, discovery and marshalling of widely dispersed data, permissions and access barriers to accumulating big data sets, construction of useful data compilations, development of analytical tools - pattern analysis, data provenance, and exposure of opaque relationships.

Eric Barendt, Anonymous Speech: Literature, Law and Politics, Oxford: Hart, 2016, xvii + 176 pp, hb £35.99.

Eric Barendt, Anonymous Speech: Literature, Law and Politics, Oxford: Hart, 2016, xvii + 176 pp, hb £35.99.

Eric Barendt: Anonymous Speech: Literature, Law and Politics

Eric Barendt: Anonymous Speech: Literature, Law and Politics

Using the school setting to map community languages: a pilot study in Manchester, England

ABSTRACTRecording the home languages of schoolchildren has long been acknowledged as a useful way of mapping community multilingualism. However, the need to process large quantities of data on many different languages has meant that in order to assess the vitality of community languages, researchers have had to rely on schoolchildren's self-reported language preference and proficiency. Moreover, large scale data collection among minors poses ethical and data protection issues. We describe a pilot study carried out in Manchester, England, in which a method was tested to record home language proficiency based on rapid, anonymous speech acts. These were correlated with respondents’ self-reported exposure to their home languages. The results indicate that different factors can play a role in language maintenance in different communities, and that home language maintenance does not have an adverse effect on proficiency in the majority language.

Online speech and democratic culture: a comparison of freedom of online speech between South Korea and the United States

ABSTRACTCivil libertarian doctrine which was dominant during the twentieth century argued that the main goal of freedom of speech was to ensure that the public would be well-informed and actively engage in public deliberation. A literal extension of this claim to the Internet age often justifies the regulation of online speech under the assumption that harmful communication undermines the public interest. This study challenges civil libertarianism and proposes a new thesis of freedom of online speech, which posits that online speech should be understood in terms of a democratic culture where every individual participates freely and without restraints in the process of meaning making that constitute her/him as an autonomous individual. Based on such a theoretical concept, this study identifies three important aspects of online speech freedom – unfettered speech, anonymous speech, and participatory speech – and then compares the status of online speech between South Korea and the United States. This research suggests that a society should understand the unique nature of online speech and then arrange the legal system to fit into it.

Internet governance by social media platforms

An emerging area of inquiry in Internet governance scholarship is the role of private information intermediaries in enacting governance via technical design choices and user policies. Following this trajectory, this paper addresses governance by social media rather than governance of social media. Informed by conceptual frameworks from Internet governance and Science and Technology Studies, it examines the extent to which these platforms either promote or constrain rights in three thematic areas: (1) anonymous speech and individual privacy; (2) the ability to express ideas or, stated as a negative liberty, freedom from censorship; and (3) technical affordances of interoperability and permissionless innovation. Because of their unique role as the intermediaries providing citizens with access to the digital public sphere, social media platforms are central points of control on the Internet. Viewing these private platforms through an Internet governance lens, rather than a content lens, suggests that social media technical architectures and policies actually pose several challenges to communication rights as well as to the open Internet. There is an opportunity for Internet governance studies, which have primarily focused on governmental policies and new global institutions, to give greater consideration to the direct policymaking role of private intermediaries and the accompanying phenomenon of the privatization of human rights.

To Reveal or Conceal?: Introducing the Anonymous Public Concern Test for US Defamation Lawsuits

Abstract Online defamation suits present a new forum for the application of traditional defamation laws. One particular nuance of these defamation suits is frequently defendants’ identities are initially unknown to the plaintiff. Because of this, courts issue Internet service providers with subpoenas requiring them to divulge the identity of anonymous users to defamation plaintiffs. This article proposes a new test that protects online speakers’ right to anonymous speech. The “Anonymous Public Concern Test” incorporates the history of protection of anonymous speech and addresses the critiques of various pro-plaintiff, pro-defendant, and hybrid tests for online subpoenas employed by courts today.

To Reveal or Conceal?: Introducing the Anonymous Public Concern Test for US Defamation Lawsuits

Abstract Online defamation suits present a new forum for the application of traditional defamation laws. One particular nuance of these defamation suits is frequently defendants’ identities are initially unknown to the plaintiff. Because of this, courts issue Internet service providers with subpoenas requiring them to divulge the identity of anonymous users to defamation plaintiffs. This article proposes a new test that protects online speakers’ right to anonymous speech. The “Anonymous Public Concern Test” incorporates the history of protection of anonymous speech and addresses the critiques of various pro-plaintiff, pro-defendant, and hybrid tests for online subpoenas employed by courts today.

Unmasking Identity: Speaker Profiling for Forensic Linguistic Purposes

ABSTRACTWhen an anonymous speech sample is associated with a criminal matter, for example in the case of a phoned-in bomb threat or ransom demand, forensic linguistic profiling may be used to infer attributes of the speaker from his or her linguistic characteristics. In this review, we present research and case examples outlining what types of speaker characteristics are discoverable via speaker profiling by expert linguists, for example, gender, age, and region of socialization. We also consider different methods in speaker profiling, including aural-perceptual, acoustic phonetic, and automated, and briefly discuss expert versus nonexpert speaker profiling, as well as the proper role of linguistic profilers versus law enforcement and legal professionals, government agencies, and others with whom forensic linguists work. Finally, we address the problem of voice and dialect disguise, including what types of disguises criminals may effect and what methods can be used to unmask them, including human and automated. We illustrate our points by alluding, throughout the review, to various elements of a case in which we recently served as expert linguistic profilers.

Arab Religious Skeptics Online: Anonymity, Autonomy, and Discourse in a Hostile Environment

The Arab atheist community is largely an online phenomenon, with limited visibility offline and with virtually no umbrella groups. It exists in unfriendly, if not hostile, political, social, religious, and legal environments. This paper aims to deepen our understanding of virtual space by analyzing the Arab atheist community online: its content, discourse, and structure. The research examines the relationship between the networked information economy and the emergence of religious skeptics as manifested in Arab cyberspace. A central question is whether the Internet enhances individual autonomy in matters of faith. Given that the Arab atheist community online is prevailingly anonymous, the paper assesses the potential and limitations of anonymous and pseudonymous speech online and the extent to which this facilitates or hinders sharing, debating, community building, and collective action.

Sowing Wild Oats: Online Anonymous Commercial Speech, Corporate Takeovers, and A New Commercial Speech Doctrine

The interpretation of commercial speech and determining the appropriate level of First Amendment free expression protection have always been problematic. This interpretation is made all the more difficult when such speech is offered anonymously or pseudonymously. The case of pseudonymous online comments on Yahoo’s financial bulletin by Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey brings to the fore the ambiguity between free speech and commercial speech. Using Mackey’s online comments as a fulcrum for analysis, we discuss the current state of commercial speech and examine some appropriate responses to potentially false or self-serving commercial speech. More specifically, we provide a brief overview of First Amendment jurisprudence addressing anonymous speech and commercial speech, and then argue that a variation on the New York Times v. Sullivan standard should be used in commercial speech cases—requiring First Amendment free-speech protection only for commercial speech that addresses “important public issues.”

Beyond Fugitive Speech: Rumor and Affect in Caribbean History

This essay argues for the utility of fugitive speech forms as primary sources for Caribbean historical research. It seeks to shift the discussion from forms such as autobiography and the memoir to more ephemeral speech forms such as hearsay, rumor, and gossip on the grounds that peripheral genres enable a glimpse of subaltern agency that often evades public discourse. The essay argues that unsanctioned speech forms get us closer to everyday experience, offer a more processual understanding of the unfolding of events, and enable a glimpse at embedded affect that is often occluded from view. It thus follows James Scott’s call for research on “hidden transcripts,” including gossip, sorcery, and spirit possession as well as other anonymous speech genres that may reveal a critique of domination, an approach with particular salience for the Caribbean, a region deeply shaped by colonial biopower.

Liability for Online Anonymous Speech: Comparative and Economic Analyses

This is a pre-edited draft of of an article presented in the special session of the Annual Conference on European Tort Law. The article examines various models for handling the problem of online anonymous defamation from comparative and economic perspectives. The comparative analysis reveals four main paradigms. The US model bars content providers’ indirect liability, but facilitates identification of the speaker. The Israeli model recognises content providers’ fault-based liability but does not provide procedural tools for identifying the speaker. The EU framework enables the victim to request identification of the speaker, and at the same time bring an action against the content provider. Although there is variance among Member States, this model seems to comply with the relevant Directives and European court decisions. The recently-adopted English model (‘residual indirect liability’) enables the victim to pursue a claim against the speaker and, if the speaker is unavailable, imposes liability on the content provider. From an economic perspective, the main problem with exclusively direct liability is the special effort in identifying and pursuing the anonymous speaker. Additional, yet probably less serious, problems are the high likelihood of judgment-proof defendants and high transaction costs which prevent a contractual transfer of the burden to the content provider when it is the cheapest cost avoider. The drawbacks of exclusively indirect liability are the relatively high cost of precautions, the fact that content providers do not capture the full social benefit of their activity, and the asymmetric legal response to errors with respect to ‘defamatoriness.’ Concurrent liability of the speaker and the content provider overcomes the high cost of identifying and pursuing anonymous speakers, and the problem of judgment-proof defendants. It also induces content providers to facilitate identification of anonymous speakers, increasing the likelihood of internalisation by primary wrongdoers. But concurrent liability has potentially conflicting effects on deterrence, and may result in an aggregation of the implementation costs of both direct and indirect liability. The residual indirect liability regime eliminates (or at least reduces significantly) the need for monitoring, and prevents over-deterrence associated with unaccounted benefits and asymmetric response to errors. It also incentivises content providers to reduce the cost of identifying anonymous wrongdoers, and does not raise the characteristic problems of multiple-defendants. This model may raise some difficulties but they seem either insignificant or solvable, making the English model (with some modifications) the most efficient.