Internet and Responsibility: A New-ish Moral Conundrum

With the passing of Hurricane Sandy, both in real life and online, a new problem rears its ugly head: the lies spread by anonymous people, and the lifting of their anonymity.

In other words, some jerk maliciously spread lies during the hurricane, thinking he would remain anonymous behind his Twitter handle, @ComfortablySmug.  But someone discovered his real name and wrote about it.  Now the man has quit his job as the campaign manager for a New York congressional candidate and apologized online for his behavior.

Some people think ComfortablySmug should be protected by the First Amendment, and that no one should have outed his name.  Other people want to know why (a reasonable question, in my opinion), and think that ComfortablySmug should be charged for any damage he did.  Either way, the question remains - how do free speech, anonymity  and the Internet go together these days?

I don't have a definite answer to this question.  I know that in some countries, people need anonymity to protect themselves, because their government would arrest or persecute them for dissenting beliefs, thoughts, or ideas.  Even in the U.S., a person who lives outside the societal norm might want or need anonymity to protect their job or reputation.

For instance, ViolentAcrez was a Reddit user who likes looking at very young woman (16 or 17), likes incest,  promotes violence against women, and made a name for himself as a creepy old man Internet troll.  A journalist for Gawker figured out that ViolentAcrez is really Michael Brutsch, a 49-year-old software programmer in Texas with kids.  Since being outed, Mr. Brutsch lost his job.

Now, I personally think that Michael Brutsch deserves whatever he gets, because he spent a lot of time combing through Facebook and other places to find pictures of teenage girls and then repost them without getting permission.  He also started a subreddits called Rapebait, Choke a Bitch, Rape Jokes, and Pics of Dead Kids.

But after Gawker outed Brutsch, several Reddit users called foul, claiming that somehow Brutsch's activities fell under Free Speech.  Well, if Brutsch is covered by Free Speech, so is the article outing him.

Yet, ViolentAcrez and ComfortablySmug are the extreme cases of a person using the anonymity provided by the Internet in a way to do harm.  What about the moderate cases?  What if someone wants to complain about a boss at work, but doesn't want to get fired?  What is a student doesn't like a teacher, but feels scared to air his or her feelings?

When does being anonymous help a person and/or society, and when does it allow for criminals and miscreants to do harm?

(BTW, you can watch CNN interview Michael Brutsch here.)

Writing Advice From the Red Clay Conference

This past Saturday, I attended the Red Clay Writing Conference, sponsored by the Georgia Writers Association (GWA).  I admit that I only joined the GWA this year, but so far I have been impressed with their events.

The Red Clay Writing Conference provided once again that GWA is a great organization for Georgia writers.  I listened to the keynote speaker, Wendy Wax, author of "10 Beach Road", before attending three panel discussions.  I learned something in every setting, and I am here to share with you.

• Keynote Speaker:  Wendy Wax presented the keynote address this year, as she discussed how she went from a retired journalist and stay at home mom to a successfully published author with nine books out there.  Personally, I like Wendy Wax because she is just plain nice.  She came out to the conference while facing a publishing deadline to pass on hope.  From Wendy, I learned:
• Even published authors have days when everything that comes out is "suckalicious".  
• It is possible to write a novel between children leaving in the morning and the afternoon school bus, so long as you keep at it.
• Having a critique partner and a set of readers is key.
• The Craft of Fiction:  Wendy Wax jumped from her keynote speech to this panel.  Jeffrey Stepakoff moderated this panel.  If the man's speaking reflects how he writers, I know that Jeffrey turns out concise fiction.  Personally, I like concise fiction. Sheri Joseph is crazy, but in a serious, writerly way.  The woman wrote 400 pages of back story to explain what  happened to her characters before the start of one of her novel.  When I heard this, I thought, Honey, that's not back story.  That's called a prequel. Amanda Gable appears to be a regular person, someone you might pass walking down the street  or working in her flower garden.  But she loves knowledge, and probably wins "Person You Most Want as a Trivial Pursuit Partner".  From these four people I learned:
• There is no writing process - in a way that's quite similar to "there is no spoon".  
• For all the books out there, every writer needs to discover how he or she writes, and follow that process.  
• On the other hand, there is a common writing problem.  My writing partner calls it the BIC problem - Butt In Chair.  Most writers need to just sit down and write.  
• For prose, all the panelists agreed that if you have writer's block, write anyway.  Personally, I find that writing about why I can't write solves most writer's blocks.
• You can find inspiration in any and everything, but the best stuff comes from living.
• Crafting the Poem:  These three women exemplify why poetry is still alive in the twenty-first century.  On top of being a poet, Cheryl Stiles bucks the grumpy publisher stereotype to run a friendly chapbook publishing company.  Katie Fesuk writes marvelous poetry (I read some of it during the panel), and I like how she views the world from a point of view slight skewed off center.  My views on Jenny Sadre-Orafai run from a successful magazine editor to the woman most likely to wear black in college.  (This is a compliment; you should see how much black clothing I still own.)  Jenny balances optimism with a healthy dose of reality, something we all could learn.  From these women, I learned:
  • First off, poetry is fiction.  The panel hammered this home as all of the poetry advice, from creation to revision to publication, works for both poetry and prose.  Poetry tends to be a bit more structured and shorter than other genres of  fiction (excluding flash fiction), but poetry is still a part of fiction.
  • After the first draft, you need to let your work rest and then revise it.  Revise, revise, revise, and when you think it's done, revise it one more time.
  • A poem is never done.  You might get to a point where you think it can be published, but you never give up the right for more revision.
  • Inspiration comes from living life, so get out from behind the keyboard occasionally and interact with the world.
  • Unlike prose, don't just keep writing if you stumble into writer's block.  Instead, switch what you're doing.  Write a short story, take a walk, do the macarena - do anything but attempt to write poetry.  
• Writing Funny: Okay, this was my favorite panel of the day.  Don't get me wrong - I had an excellent time the entire day.  But watching these three men sit and discuss their work was like watching Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Ron White at the end of a Blue Collar concert, when they all sit around swapping stories.  The entire audience laughed, laughed, and then laughed some more. Ray Atkins sounds like someone's crazy uncle, visiting the house for an afternoon of tall tales and beer.  John Schulz proved Foxworthy right in his definition of a redneck as someone with a glorious lack of sophistication.  John looked a bit uncomfortable at the beginning of the panel, but as soon as the jokes starting flying and the men read excerpts, John brought out his Southern smile and joined in the fun.  Man Martin needs to read his own book for the audio version of it.  Man took a passage that he memorized, and performed the character so perfectly that even the other men on the panel needed a few minutes to recover from the laughter.  These men taught me:
• Life is funny, if you look at it the right way.
• Humor helps to relieve tension in a book.
• I will never be as funny as Ray Atkins, John Schulz, or Man Martin.

Book Review: "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Mysterious Benedict Society" brings readers to a world with adventuring orphans, evil genius machinations, and a sinister plan that plays on modern day fears.

I read this book out loud to my children, and even though they were perfectly capable of reading it themselves, we had a fantastic time. Trenton Lee Stewart creates believable characters who live extraordinary lives. No one comes from a perfect home or a perfect background, but the children come together as a working group. I particularly like how each child reads as a separate individual, but none of them had stock personalities.

The only negative about the story is the length of time it takes to find out what is going on. Partway through the beginning of the book, I felt like I was missing some vital piece of information, because I just didn't get it. But soon enough, Mr. Stewart gets around to informing the reader of what's going on. You just need patience to get that far.

I give this book four out of five stars.

View all my reviews