On being ‘anonymous’

A recent tweet by someone I consider a friend and ally accidentally revealed a professional connection of mine that I had made a conscious choice not to explicitly connect to my twitter account. This prompted me to visit the matter of my ‘anonymity’.

This has been on my mind for sometime so I am grateful for the opportunity the tweet has presented to reflect on the reasons for my choice to tweet ‘anonymously’.

For the most part, I have chosen not to be explicit about any of my work connections in my profile or tweets, though not-too-close reading of my timeline would likely reveal clues. That’s fine. If you have the time and inclination to trawl my tweets for that sort of thing, I suggest you have too much time on your hands and a need for a more rewarding pastime. The point is, I’d chosen not to be explicit about these things, though at the same time recognise that on Twitter ‘anonymity’ cannot be guaranteed, especially when we inevitably reveal things about ourselves in our pronouncements and interactions.

I have chosen this notional ‘anonymity’ not because I do not wish to personally own or be associated with anything I’ve said. I do so, gladly, even those things that I’ve later reflected on and considered to be too pointed, strident or which could be perceived as counter to productive dialogue because there is at least the hope of learning from my mistakes.

I have chosen to be ‘anonymous’ out of respect for my employer, which has been supportive of my use of social media to discuss social work issues and to gather and disseminate social care and social work knowledge, and for people in the organisations with which I and my employer are associated and who I like and admire very much and who have also supported me in my use of social media to discuss social work matters. Therefore, I wish to minimise the possibility of my views — critical, radical and often strongly expressed — being associated with them. They have not consented to the possibility that others may associate them with my views, for whatever reason and however valid or invalid that association. Healthy debate is a rich tapestry of reasoned, informed opinions and ideas, expressed respectfully, if at times robustly. In order to contribute to that, we need to be able to freely express our views. Debate is successful when it leads to shifts in perception or position on the part of those participating or looking in. My views, opinions and ideas are not immutable. They evolve and change in line with the learning arising from my interactions with others. This is why I appreciate and enjoy Twitter, for all its many drawbacks and pitfalls.

Feeling free to express views, especially dissenting ones, is of fundamental importance in a democracy. Article 10 of the Human Rights Act protects our rights to express ourselves freely without fear of state interference. But the state-citizen contract is very often not the locus of concern about such things in the realm of social media, but rather the employer-employee relationship. I have seen and heard how people and organisations use different tactics to suppress and silence the free expression of ideas and opinions and one of these is to imply association between the views of individuals and those of the organisations they work for or are otherwise professionally connected to.

There are times when this is a valid and appropriate response. When individuals’ views or online activities are by any reasonable standards offensive, demonstrably unethical or, indeed, illegal, there should be sanctions, proportionate to the concern.

However, in an age of increasing inequality and injustice, fuelled by abuse of power, political and personal, covert and overt, it is absolutely vital that, in order to preserve the fabric of democracy, we retain the freedom to speak truth to power, without fear that individuals or organisations that do not agree with us or who may feel threatened by what we have to say may try to leverage professional connections or associations in attempts to silence or suppress our criticism of them.

Freedom of expression is a human right and I hereby claim it.