Comment by KirinDave | Hacker News Reader

Comment by KirinDave | Hacker News Reader

What's confusing about all this is that Scott Alexander [redacted, see 0] doesn't seem to be in any way "pseudonymous." A non-profiled Google search autocompletes this, and then links to numerous fan-driven Reddit threads including talk about podcasts and authors.[1]

Given that his name was already out there to the point where it's trivially discoverable, did he even have pseudonymous status to begin with? I still have to work to recover Dril's name, and I confess I never heard Infosec Taylor Swift's name. But I actually had this name in the back of my head for years now. If an NYT reported had asked me to name him, I probably could have in a heartbeat.

A lot is being said about the transgression of the press here, but if you've got a fan-run reddit where they're using your full name publicly, maybe it's somewhat futile to delete your blog and blame the NYT no matter how much your purported genius entitles you.

I am definitely one of those spooky antifa types that folks here label with derision as the "ctrl-left". If anyone wanted to somehow threaten his safety, they're a google search away. That places him closer to discoverability for most folks than any NYT article which will squat behind a paywall.

Far more likely is that few have bothered Scott or substantially transgressed his safety because he's actually a very small niche blogger with a loyal but admittedly small fan community.

I admit I'm a famously uncharitable audience for bloggers, but I'm much more inclined to think that this entire series of events is either a fit of pique that blew up in Scott's face, or a deliberate attempt to create a controversy to gain publicity.

[0]: I've been informed that as there is a central controversy over if this man is in fact anonymous, the mods are going to err on the side of caution, and so I've re-presented this post with the item redacted even though it turns out all it took to find the name was to let google autocomplete the name, populated from content 7 years old.

[1]: I've screenshotted what _I_ see when I use an incog to search for him on this tweet: [redacted], it turns out even THIS is too much of a concession to reality. My twitter account has the screenshot if you'd like to see it. But it consists of typing "scott alexander"

Yeah, it's too cute by half to pretend you're working to respect his pseudonymity and then link a tweet you sent out with his real name attached.

That's also clearly not a clean incognito search, as it has your previous search with his name included.

How much of a conversation about the Google-fu required to produce his name do you want to have here? I agree, though: the screenshot didn't help; if it was me, I'd edit it out.

I think everyone would agree that it's easy to link the two names if you have foreknowledge that they're linked, and that furthermore you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated.

It was mostly just annoying that they were presenting theirself as being a civil, good-faith rule abider, while also being clearly thrilled at "cleverly" outing Scott Alexander.

I'm not outing him. He outed himself.

I even felt a bit of sympathy for him before I realized his fan reddit has invoked his name many times. I even suggested in public I'm a fan of some of his writing. But this is just ridiculous.

No. That is not what I'm saying. I wouldn't be saying, over and over again, that this identity was effectively already public if all I had was "if you know his real name you can confirm the link". I'm saying that the Googling required to uncover his name is trivial armed only with the name "Scott Alexander". Please acknowledge that, thank you.

> that furthermore you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated.

As far as I can tell, we're in violent agreement?

You just said "I think everyone would agree that it's easy to link the two names if you have foreknowledge that they're linked" and that is not what I'm saying. To be in violent agreement with me, you'd more or less have to say his real name is immediately available to anyone who knows the name "Scott Alexander".

So, I made two claims in the original (and unedited) comment that spawned this thread:

1) The weaker one, about link finding

2) and furthermore a stronger one, which I quote in my response.

The stronger one being, "you need at most middling Google-fu to find his real name from his pseudonym if you're motivated."

That stronger claim is still weaker than your "his real name is immediately available to anyone who knows the name Scott Alexander." That said, perhaps we have different thresholds for immediate: mine was spending ~60 seconds searching for his pseudonym and trying to find his real name from it, and I failed to find it. I think it's likely I could within 10 minutes, but I'd put that clearly in the territory of my intermediate claim.

I'm lost. Anyways: the Google searches have nothing to do with already knowing Scott Alexander's real name.

Go do a firstname lastname search for Scott and then look what shows up on page 1.

I regret to inform you he cannot escape his reactionary blog just by wishing it so. If anything, this escapade will draw more attention to him. The NYT is not required

It's not, but it's very easy to try your own incognito search - for me, at least, it was the same results in a different order.

My central thesis is that I don't respect his pseudonymity, because he does not have it. I'm within the letter of the site rules, even if it pisses me off a bit.

Uh, I regret to inform you that I found the name from the autocomplete and then hit tab. It was not on the tip of my tongue and you can easily reproduce the experiment if you don't believe me.

My reproduced experiment:

https://imgur.com/a/Ppj57cP

Note that there's no reference to his real name.

The only reference to his real name in your screenshot is the first entry, which is purple and removable because it is coming from your browser's session identity history. If this was in fact in an incognito tab, it's likely you had one or more incognito windows simultaneously open somewhere else where you had searched for him, which carried over into your new tab.

https://imgur.com/a/NwwBiIo

I did this on a computer I don't usually use in an incognito tab.

Interesting. I suspect that the different results Google gives different people (even in incognito mode) are driving a lot of the divergence and even rancor between the two points of view.

I have no privileged information except one: my father dropped by and I could reproduce the last name appearing on his non-incognito account.

He is not "the target audience" for this sort of thing.

I’m not disagreeing with you, but throughout these threads people are searching for him and trying to find his real name. I don’t think that’s the relevant search.

I think the relevant search is, if you search for his real name, do you find him as Scott Alexander of SSC. This is the concern he seems to share in his post. Currently when I search his name, I see no connection in the first two pages of results. I could maybe get there if I spent the time following links. If the NYT publishes his real name in connection to SSC, a google search will probably find it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com