#59: Anonymity
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Listen in as the team at Interval discusses this week’s hot topics in healthcare marketing: controlling variables with marketing measurement, feedback on the “Five Minute Frenzy” podcast, the question of anonymity on public forums and more. Show notes are after the break.
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- A Marketers Guide to Measuring Results:
http://www.thinkmarketingmetrics.com/ - Join the book discussion on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2927566 - Join the book discussion on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Marketers-Guide-to-Measuring-Results/10150131016515574 - “Five Minute Frenzy” podcast:
http://www.thinkinterval.com/2010/05/healthcare-marketing-insights-fiv-minute-frenzy/
I think there are some cases that warrant a case for being anonymous when commenting on a blog. Outside of protecting whistle-blowers (which in some cases can be very useful: see http://www.jobvent.com, for example), commenters can sometimes help police and newspapers with key information in their investigative efforts.
For example in Illinois court it was argued that reporter’s shield law protects the identity of blog anonymous commenters because the commenters were both “persons” and “sources” within the meaning of the Illinois law. The court ruling found:
“The commentary section provides readers with a platform for discussing the case at their leisure. Bloggers feel the comfort, and sometimes too much comfort, of freely conversing with the protections normally provided through the expected anonymity of the Internet. A lack of these protections and/or anonymity might well have a chilling effect on future bloggers.”
So, in terms of anonymity, even some courts find that removing the ability to comment without identifying yourself can dynamically shift the very construct and intent of blogging – a dangerous, slippery slope that I believe we don’t want to go down.