Hidden Voices, Public Consequences

In apparent response to a statement authored by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and co-signed by other student organizations, a truck digitally displaying the pictures and names of students allegedly affiliated with the signatories began circulating Harvard Square on Wednesday. Credible safety concerns then forced the PSC to reschedule a vigil planned to honor civilian lives lost in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to the PSC’s Instagram.

Regardless of whether you agree with the PSC’s statement, the revealing of student identities and the subsequent threats to their safety raise an important question for free speech: Does anonymity — behind a pseudonym, an online forum, or an organizational byline — subvert free speech or protect it?

In most cases, free speech advocates should encourage people to speak with their identity. As a general principle, putting your name behind a statement adds value because others can hold you personally accountable for what you say. When a statement is made anonymously, accountability is lost.

In fostering freedom from consequences, anonymity can encourage violent and racist speech. On the anonymous platforms 4chan and 8chan, for example, hate speech runs rampant. These and similar platforms have allowed individuals to coordinate doxxing campaigns, mass shootings, and the sharing of child pornography.

This philosophical question of the role of anonymity also has real stakes for our community. Take, for example, the Harvard Salient, an anonymous conservative student publication.

By publishing anonymously, the Salient may lessen its own impact. Many of the complex topics discussed in the publication warrant further discussion, but authors’ anonymity precludes contacting them to start a conversation. Moreover, an understanding of a writer’s identity and associated experiences may also help readers comprehend their argument.

Yet the Salient’s anonymous practices are also understandable. As a political minority at Harvard, conservatives may face harsh judgment and be socially ostracized for their views. In this context, writing under pseudonyms to avoid social retribution is understandable. Salient contributors could reasonably expect to face social consequences for their writing is indicative of a cultural problem on our campus that we’ve previously criticized.

But however toxic the social climate may be, students retain their right to avoid values that don’t align with their own. The right to free speech does not imply a right to receive respect. While Harvard students should be more open-minded and tolerant of opposing views, our own rights to free speech do not strictly require this. We must acknowledge that social consequences for those who voice unpopular views are extensions of individuals’ rights and thereby instances of free speech in and of themselves. Contentious speech can and should be retorted with criticism and judgment.

But when do such consequences of free speech go so far as to be unreasonable and therefore justify anonymity?

As the old saying goes, “Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins.” When a consequence to speech moves beyond the expression of one’s own rights to speech, becoming instead a violation of someone else’s livelihood — through death threats, swatting, or endangerment — we have moved far past what could be considered reasonable.

With this framework in mind, it is reasonable for individual signatories of the PSC’s statement to wish to remain anonymous, since students could expect unreasonable consequences in reaction to their speech.

Student behavior over the past week has confirmed this principle. Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Harvard students have been using the anonymous social media app Sidechat to discuss the issue from many points of view. Many of these students may be reluctant to speak out publicly for fear of doxxing.

Here, anonymity has enabled — not curtailed — free speech. Because unreasonable consequences may very well meet those who express their opinion on Israel-Palestine publicly, the app provides an anonymous safe haven.

As University of Florida president Benjamin E. Sasse ’94 recently put it, “Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves.” It also protects the right of all of us to judge one another for the idiotic arguments we make, even if that involves the loss of friendships or social standing.

But it doesn’t protect a right to use speech to cause material harm to others. There should be reasonable consequences for speech. Insofar as responses are reasonable, that is a risk that all who speak out must endure.

Milo J. Clark ’24 is a Physics concentrator in Lowell House. Tyler S. Young ’26 lives in Leverett House. Their column, “Voices Unbound,” runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays.

Editor’s Note: Readers should note that pre-moderation has been turned on for online commenting on this article out of concerns for student safety.

—Cara J. Chang, President

—Eleanor V. Wikstrom and Christina M. Xiao, Editorial Chairs