For different reasons, Staines/Guido Fawkes needed to be outed. An understanding of the man’s background helps you to read between the lines of his posts better.

The identity of the overly opinionated sex blogger, Belle de Jour, is widely known. In spite of the author’s crimes against the English language, there is no public interest argument for exposure. Possession of a fantastic (look up the definition) sex life is a private concern.

Reading Jack of Kents’ commentary on the case, it looks as though the evidence could have been presented in another way and an outcome in Night Jack’s favour made more likely (http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2009/06/jack-night-and-privacy-case-analysis.html). It’s an interesting problem and I’m not convinced Eady’s judgement completely took account of that doubleness.

Still, legal protection of pseudonymity/anonymity is basically impossible online, where every post leaves a trail and no other blogger is likely to be held off by an injunction, even if you could hold the press at bay. For bloggers, the lessons of Night Jack are probably more practical than legal: if you want to blog in secret, you have to conceal yourself scrupulously from the start.

we should consider the public interest in the publication of a particular story only when another important principle would potentially indicate that the freedom of press should be restricted. . I don’t really think that naming guido or nightjack is in the public interest. But that isnt really the point. While we have, throughout the ages, had journalists writing under pseudonums – the ability to anonymously engage in public discourse has never been enshrined as a positive, legally enforceable right. As such there is no reason why papers publishing their names should have to justify their interventions as being in the public interest, any more than the plethora of other pointless articles they publish.

On the wider subject of newspapers outing bloggers, I’m sure it will continue to happen, but it works the other way round too. The identity of Private Eye pseudonyms have been divulged on blogs.
What I find more interesting though is the partisanship that guides peoples responses to newspapers outing bloggers. The liberal media, either print or online, weren’t exactly rushing to Guido’s defence or criticising The Guardian in the way they have with NightJack.

I think it’s quite likely that the Mail and other papers have an eye out for further juicy stories with the potential to embarrass bloggers. I mean, you wouldn’t think that Mail readers cared what was published inside Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, but the Mail still managed to turn that into a front page a few years ago. There’s an art to coaxing outrage out of even the unlikeliest material.

Also, IIRC Guido, bete noir of many here, was outed by The Guardian a few years back – petty act of revenge or in the public interest?

In response to Sunny’s comment, I think it’s deliberate that he gets so many of these high profile libel cases, because he is in effect the expert judge in this area – and, for better or worse, his ruling very rarely get overturned on appeal as I recall. In other words, problems with his rulings are more about what the law says than about how he interprets it, as otherwise more of his rulings would get overturned.

I agree that there’s minimal public interest in bloggers. But there is a crude business interest in outing bloggers, where bloggers are perceived as encroaching on the newspapers’ patch. The Mail piece certainly gives the impression that they intend to reveal more bloggers’ identities in the future.

PS The Mail piece linked to is hardly ‘celebratory’ – it’s remarkably straightforward and non-judgemental for the Mail.

Note also that the two examples I mention were outed by supposed ‘quality’ broadsheet papers, not the down-market tabloids.

The NightJack outing struck me as yet another instance of vindictiveness-against-bloggers that we will continue to see by the mainstream press, which – with a few exceptions – doesn’t understand the online medium, but is threatened by it.

The fact is that anonymity is an extremely important aspect of online writing for many people and it should be protected as such. Anonymity gives us ‘ordinary’ people a voice we can use to express ourselves online (ok, I use my full name, but that’s largely because I never had much to protect).

Because they’re ‘ordinary’ people and writers – and not overpaid, overrated government and/or business mouthpieces, as so many mainstream writers and commentators are – many bloggers rely on day jobs, etc, to pay the bills, which allows them to continue to write and express their thoughts and describe their experiences online. Describing those experiences and expressing those views is important.

Everyone who takes online writing seriously, and contributes to blogs and forums, etc, is doing their bit to contribute to the drawing of a much more honest and well-rounded picture of life at this point in history than the mainstream press is inclined to present. I didn’t always like NightJack – didn’t feel he was much of a socialist, to say the least – but I found his blog very good and interesting, because it seemed an honest take on policing and took me a bit further inside a world that I didn’t know much about. Didn’t always like the views expressed therein, but that was never the point.

Bottom line is that anonymity allowed that copper to write that blog. As soon as he was outed, the blog disappeared, and so a certain freedom was lost. Anonymity is a weapon that the people, if I can describe us as such, have at our disposal at the moment. The Times’ action was an attack on that weapon, if you like. Very anti-democratic.

There’s so many issues here to pick too. Yes, the PCC is rubbish. Dcare / Wade etc are supremely hypocritical.

But can that many bloggers serve as newspaper fodder? Who else high-profile is left?

Excellent article btw Sarah

Eady, who has tended to side with the plaintiff, is often their judge of choice for such cases.

Britain’s libel laws are broken and urgently need revision to restore some balance.

As for the outing of anonymous bloggers – it’s not something I really have an opinion on

The Anton Vowl piece about Susan Boyle you link to is also brilliant.

The question is, how do we take on Dacre, Wade and Wadley? They are very intelligent, manipulative and powerful individuals. But I genuinely believe a huge investment in universal education, and taking on these individuals, is the only way to save democracy.

I’d like to see some discussion as to why it is that some of the most powerful people in our society, behind the scenes, are women. And bloody hard too – Rebekah Wade was married to Ross Kemp. SHE beat HIM up!