How Has the Fight for Anonymity and Privacy Advanced Since Snowden's
MCS0010.1177/0163443719843867Media, Culture & SocietyColeman 843867research-article2019 Special section: Online Anonymity Media, Culture & Society 2019, Vol. 41(4) 565 –571 How has the fight for © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: anonymity and privacy sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443719843867DOI: 10.1177/0163443719843867 advanced since Snowden’s journals.sagepub.com/home/mcs whistle-blowing? Gabriella Coleman McGill University, Canada Abstract This article examines the legal, social, and political forces in a post-Snowden era that clarified the stakes around privacy and anonymity all while pulling more people into the orbit of a contemporary privacy and anonymity movement. It compares and contrasts the 100-year period in which US courts fleshed out free speech ideals and recent grass-roots privacy and anonymity initiatives that have come to reach a critical mass, highlighting the importance of civil society, journalists, and especially hackers whose aggressive pursuit of practical solutions have created the conditions for acting anonymously and securing privacy in our current era. Keywords anonymity, hacktivism, post-Snowden era, privacy Today, thanks to the Internet, most people – not just traditional authors with access to publishers (Griffin, 1999) – have the ability to be, speak, and act anonymously. Whether its image boards, Internet chat rooms, ‘dark web’ marketplaces and communities, blogs, video games, mailing lists, or even some social media platforms like Twitter, scores of people can log onto these sites to write, speak, interact, and even act publicly without having to reveal one’s legal identity or location. In spite of these new-fangled possibili- ties for being anonymous or pseudonymous, the level of protection afforded by today’s technology is in fact only skin deep.
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