Pseudonymity and anonymity
Pseudonymity and anonymity are two ways of referring to a person. It is the secret about the author of an act, saying or work. They are used in book publications, newspaper articles, police references and other mass media.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name intentionally used by a person to publish their works or books. The pseudonym involves a first and last name, or sometimes just a noun. For example, Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym used by Chilean poet Lucila Godoy de Alcayaga, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Similarly, under the pseudonym Pablo Neruda her poetry was subscribed to by the Chilean bard whose legal name was Neftalí Reyes. Another famous pseudonym was Azorín, that of José Martínez Ruiz, the author of Los pueblos and many other essays.
Also in the case of world politics there are pseudonyms that identify various characters in history: Lenin, Stalin and Tito. In the cinema, many actors and actresses appear with pseudonyms and with that identity go down in history, as in the case of Cantinflas, to refer to the Mexican buffo Mario Moreno.
Legislation
The proper use of the pseudonym is allowed, especially when it comes to journalists or writers, who eventually go down in history with that nickname. In the case of anonymous messages that violate the honor and dignity of third parties, they are prosecuted by law, and the offender deserves a criminal sanction.
Anonymity on the internet has been postulated as a new fourth-generation human right.
Anonymity
Anonymity is the character or condition of being anonymous, that is, that the identity of a person or entity is unknown. This may simply be because his identity has not been asked, as in an occasional meeting between strangers, or because the person is unable or unwilling to reveal his identity. For example, this can happen to victims of crime and war, whose identity cannot be recognized. Disguising identity can also be by choice, for legitimate reasons such as privacy and, in some cases, personal security. Many people, both in crime and in many other sectors, often prefer to remain anonymous, as in the case of writing a letter with a threat or demand: many workers prefer to withhold their name when making a public complaint regarding bad Labor conditions. In large cities there is greater anonymity than in small towns, which can be seen as an advantage or an inconvenience. Anonymous works do not always have a known author. They may be the result of folklore tradition, oral dissemination, or the author's information may have been intentionally lost or hidden.[citation needed]
Anonymous Rights Coalition
As defined by the Royal Spanish Academy, anonymity consists of the character or condition of being anonymous or, in other words, that it does not bear the name of its author. This definition is essential to be able to evaluate how relevant this condition can be in the field of communication media, therefore, it is necessary to identify the different rights that enter into a coalition when talking about anonymity. The person who goes anonymous in order to report a situation that affects them makes use of it to correctly exercise their right to free expression that, if not exercised behind the mask of anonymity, their person and those of their family could be in danger Thus, some of their rights are threatened, fundamentally the right to life. By way of example, in Venezuela the Law against Hate, promulgated in November 2017, has been criticized and its detractors point out that it is designed to penalize political dissent by classifying it as a crime, that it establishes restrictions on personal freedom and that it promotes both censorship as well as self-censorship. Therefore, in the country anonymity is a crucial tool in order to make complaints against the State. Today, the resource of anonymity can be very useful; however, used improperly it can be a destructive tool that can be used against the honor and good name of people and institutions, when the information provided is not entirely true.
There is also a difference between anonymity and privacy on the Internet: anonymity is interpreted for purposes contrary to the law, that is, in bad faith, so that it is not known who makes these types of publications. Privacy, in turn, refers to the guarantee of private information due to online connections and publications.
As an example, the State Attorney General of Spain reported 2,600 crimes committed by the network during 2007, among which fraud through auctions or online sales, bank fraud crimes and pornography stand out childish. Crimes that violate the fundamental rights of the people involved. As this violation of rights, there are multiple violations that can be caused thanks to the condition of anonymity that the Internet grants its users, of course from a legal perspective, the uncertainty that exists about what is the limit of the rights of people since it is extremely problematic that the rights of some may violate those of others.
Prohibition of anonymity and the use of pseudonyms in some legislations
Anonymity, despite being a mechanism to protect the right to freedom of expression, conceived as one of the central liberties of democracy, is a subject debated in various legislations and on which different measures have been taken to regulate its use.
Brazil
The constitutional text of the Federative Republic of Brazil of 1988 expressly prohibits anonymous speech in order to maintain the possibility of identifying people who manifest through electronic means, as in real life. This prohibition is found in article 5 numeral 4 of the Political Charter of Brazil.
“Article 5. All are equal before the law, without distinction of any kind, guaranteeing to the Brazilians and foreigners residing in the Country the inviolability of the right to life, liberty, equality, security and priority, in the following terms: IV. The manifestation of thought is free, anonymity is forbidden.”
The use of pseudonyms, although not expressly prohibited in the Brazilian Constitution, is limited by the prohibition of anonymous speech, since it obliges the disclosure of all types of information related to the identity of the people who express themselves in electronic media.
Venezuelan
Venezuelan legislation has taken a step in the same direction by establishing in its constitution the prohibition of anonymity in the terms of article 57 of the letter.
Article 57. Everyone has the right freely to express his thoughts, ideas or opinions of a vivid voice, in writing or through any other form of expression, and to make use of any means of communication and dissemination, without any censorship. Whoever makes use of this right assumes full responsibility for everything expressed. Anonymity, war propaganda, discriminatory messages and those promoting religious intolerance are not permitted.
Censorship of public officials or public officials to report on matters under their responsibilities is prohibited.
The constitution makes no mention of the use of pseudonyms. However, under the same understanding, it is assumed that this would hinder the fulfillment of the duty that is "annexed" to the right of free expression. That of answering for everything expressed.
Ecuador
Ecuador does not have an explicit law that prohibits anonymity, however, the Organic Law of Communication of 2013, in its article 20 establishes the subsequent responsibility of the media.
“Article 20. Further responsibility of the media. There will be further responsibility of the media, in the administrative, civil and criminal spheres when the content disseminated is expressly assumed by the media or not explicitly attributed to another person.
Comments made at the bottom of electronic publications on the legally constituted media websites shall be the personal responsibility of those who make them, unless the media fail to comply with one of the following actions:
- Clearly inform the user about their personal responsibility regarding the comments issued;
- Generate mechanisms for registering personal data to enable identification, such as name, electronic address, citizenship or identity card, or;
- Design and implement self-regulation mechanisms that prevent publication, and allow the denunciation and elimination of contents that harm the rights enshrined in the Constitution and the law.
The media will only be able to reproduce messages from social networks when the issuer of such messages is properly identified; if the media fails to comply with this obligation, they will have the same established responsibility for the contents published on their website that are not explicitly attributed to another person".
It establishes that the media are responsible for the comments made through their web portals, in addition to limiting themselves to replicating messages if the author is not properly identified.
Additionally, in 2015 former President Rafael Correa tried to regulate anonymity on the Internet, since he was dissatisfied with some anonymous Twitter accounts that were used to criticize his government, Crudo Ecuador. Additionally, that same year intimate images of Mery Zamora, the former leader of the National Union of Educators (UNE), were disseminated from an anonymous account, which opened the debate on the restriction of online anonymity.
Importance of encryption
Encryption is the method by which the information transferred in computer media is protected, so that only the sender and the receiver have access to what is being sent. It is important to encrypt due to the large amount of information that is exchanged in digital media such as bank information, personal photos, family information or the content of conversations in different networks and emails.
It is a serious problem that there is information from individuals and entities that is accessible to all, since digital security is violated and, consequently, the security of each individual or entity, their family and their finances.
“The simple fact of connecting to a computer network without sufficient security measures puts us in a situation of nakedness, where anyone with basic knowledge can search all our documents, know what we do on the network, what pages we visit, what music we listen to, what photos we own. In short, you can have full access to our computer without even the slightest suspicion arising. Faced with the increasingly close possibility of losing intimacy and privacy, similar to an Orwellian world where Big Brother can be anyone with basic knowledge of computers and a computer, cryptography is presented as a possibility to safeguard privacy. (Johnny Pabón, 2010).
One of the biggest problems in keeping digital media information encrypted is the intervention of governments with the so-called backdoors, which give different governments the possibility of having access to information from certain individuals or entities. Something problematic, since by allowing this backdoor, governments are not allowing their unique access, but are giving a possibility and running the great risk that other individuals can enter to access the encrypted media with intentions distorted and dangerous for the society belonging to these media.
Another notorious problem with the backdoor at present is with the WhatsApp social network, since it is said that the encryption here is useless due to the fact that the company can read the messages before they have been marked as delivered. Since then, the company has based the privacy and security of its messages as its main sales strategy. End-to-end encryption is based on the generation of unique security keys that are verified between users to ensure the privacy of communications. This type of encryption means that both the sender and the receiver need two keys each, one public and one private, to decrypt the message. The content is encrypted on the phone, travels encrypted and decrypted on the recipient's mobile. However, according to The Guardians, WhatsApp has the option of generating a second key without one of the recipients being connected.
References
Cryptography and the protection of digital information, Universidad Externado de Colombia, retrieved on November 19, 2017 from: http://revistas.uexternado.edu.co/index.php/propin/article/view/2476 /3636
A WhatsApp backdoor makes message encryption useless, Eldiario.es, Retrieved on November 19, 2017 from: http://www.eldiario.es/cultura/tecnologia/puerta-trasera -WhatsApp-encryption-serve_0_601240121.html
http://cso.computerworld.es/actualidad/los-delitos-ganan-fuerza-en-el-anonimato-de-la-red
https://www.telesurtv.net/news/ANC-venezolana-approves-law-of-Pacific-Coexistence-and-Tolerance-20171108-0051.html
Legal disputes
Columbia
In February 2014, Gonzalo Hernán López was sentenced to 18 months and 20 days in prison and a fine of 16 times the current legal minimum wage for a comment made on the website of the newspaper "El País" de Cali, in the comments forum section mentioning the director of the Federation of Apartments Gloria Escalante.
In the note titled "Captures continue for the EmCali scholarship cartel", published in 2008, Mr. López left the following comment:
“And with such a rat as Escalante that even from the Club Colombia and Comfenalco have driven it by bad handling that (sic) can be expected... The thief discovering thieves? “Bah!”
This publication was considered by many as an insult, being in Colombia the first sentence of this type imposed by the Superior Court of Cali and confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice for not having accepted the appeal filed by the defendant's defense.
It is worth mentioning that the comment was made using a pseudonym and from an anonymous email account. However, after the official's complaint, the prosecution managed to trace the IP address from which the comment was sent and revealed the address of López's office.
Some journalists such as Diego Martínez Loreda agreed with the Court's decision and assured that the sentence put an end to a bullying that has been taking place on the web by people who hide in anonymity and carry out all kind of expletives and insults, considering that it is not freedom of expression, but cowardice.
However, other journalists such as Pedro Vaca believe that the Cali Supreme Court should not have limited itself to studying the charges, it should have studied the underlying issue. He believes that this type of comment should be taken as an opinion, since these spaces are given for that, to show different opinions. Considering that officials are exposed to receiving this type of comments, it is the same freedom of expression that must be taken into account. Cow said:
“Public personalities, such as officials, must be tolerant of criticism. People who are exposed to social scrutiny are also exposed to comments against them,” adding that “the issue of freedom of expression on the internet is part of an agenda that is just beginning in Colombia and is relatively new in many countries. Discussions on issues such as defamation, insult or slander on the internet have not been fully addressed. It is regrettable that the Court does not. The Court, having the opportunity to address a substantive debate, is limited to dealing with the plaintiff’s charges.”
The court considered this comment as an insult against an Emcali official. It is the first conviction of this type in Colombia carried out by the Superior Court of Cali. The Constitutional Court has indicated that
"Freedom of opinion includes not only expressions well received by society but also those that can be offensive or shocking. If you look at the comments of this person because they are clearly offensive, but what I mean is that this is protected by the Constitutional Court.”
Sources:
https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/contra-libertad-de-expresion-articulo-505601
http://www.elpais.com.co/judicial/polemica-por-condena-a-autor-de-un-comentario-en-internet.html