A presentation by Artur Pericles L. Monteiro (Yale Law School). This event is part of the Digital Governance Research Colloquium hosted by the Centre for Digital Governance.
As scholars and policymakers draw strategies to respond to the pathologies afflicting the digital public sphere, they often take aim at anonymity. Identity disclosure is seen as a tool to provide listeners with information to assess speaker credibility and to create a more truth-based discourse by inducing speakers to behave more responsibly. The assumption often seems to be that anonymity promotes lies, while disclosure induces truth. This talk will question that assumption.
Drawing on multidisciplinary empirical research, Artur argues that that underlying assumption reflects a binary understanding of anonymity which fails to appreciate the plurality of anonymity and identification. His point is that real names and real-name policies don't have a fixed function, and neither does anonymity. This is key to understanding how real-name policies can act as a driver of mis- and disinformation and other concerns about social media.
Artur Pericles L. Monteiro is the Wikimedia Fellow at Yale's Information Society Project and an Associate Researcher Scholar at Yale Law School. His work focuses on platform governance, anonymity, freedom of speech, privacy, and data protection. He has spoken at conferences at Yale Law School, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and George Washington University. Previously, Art was head of research at InternetLab, an independent research center on law and technology in Brazil. He holds a doctorate in law, an M.Sc., and an LL.B., from the University of São Paulo (Brazil), where he led the clinic on free speech and the internet.
Registration is required for this event. Registered participants will receive the link to this online event on the day of the event.
