On more than one occasion I have blogged about content from Kathy Sierra over at Creating Passionate Users. Today, I read something that made me really think (it made me sick too). Before I go on, I should warn you, Kathy has been very open and her post contains some explicit content. She is courageous for writing what she has written and deserves better than what she has received.

In reading Kathy’s post, I now see more clearly than ever before, some of the danger in the web’s anonymity. In 2000, I listened to Walter Cronkite speak at Lotusphere. In his monolog, he voiced concern for “sources” taken as factual but with no means of verification.

If people were held accountable for their words as much as their deeds, I suspect a lot more thought would go into what people write in web forums, blogs, and the like. I strongly suspect much of what Kathy has endured would not have occurred.

I’m not proposing national identity cards and retinal scans at every mom and pop store or video surveillance every 10 feet. This country has a foundation rock that is personal freedom. the issue is when one person’s freedoms adversely effect another. With respect to anonymity, it definitely has its place - for example, protecting witnesses who report violent crimes

With Kathy Sierra’s story, the blogsphere has taken a serious blow. I hope those of us who truly belie in this medium find ways to promote a just, honest, and open medium. I commend vowe for his “full name and a working email address” policy.

My site is being spammed pretty hard lately (nearly 1000 this month) and I will soon enable more anti-spam features. If I could, I’d enable a “real user” policy.

I’m not interested in censoring free speech. I believe everyone has their right to say what they want. But, as in a court of law, the accused has the right to face his accuser - I think anonymity has it’s place but I’m not convinced it’s the proper bedfellow of free speech.

I’ll be thinking more about this over the coming days and weeks and I will watch and hope that Kathy Sierra will again return to the blogging world and share her talent with the rest of us.

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