This reminds me of the time that Slate published hilzoy’s real name, in 2009.
I think what happened there is that the Slate author was following journalistic customs of using real names and didn’t realize that hilzoy wanted to stay pseudonymous online, and hilzoy had been even less vigilant than Scott about keeping her real name unfindable. And then once the article had been published, hilzoy’s request to remove her name ran into Slate’s policy of never changing published articles unless they contain a factual error, and this was not a factual error. (It’s possible that the author also had some adversarial motives for publishing the name—it did happen in the context of a disagreement between her and hilzoy—but I don’t know of any clear or direct evidence for that.)
So the main storyline here might be about the media having its own customs and not much caring about what happens to the people that they cover. The press does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of stories which it can tell to its audience. I’m not sure what implications (if any) this has about what to do now.
This reminds me of the time that Slate published hilzoy’s real name, in 2009.
I think what happened there is that the Slate author was following journalistic customs of using real names and didn’t realize that hilzoy wanted to stay pseudonymous online, and hilzoy had been even less vigilant than Scott about keeping her real name unfindable. And then once the article had been published, hilzoy’s request to remove her name ran into Slate’s policy of never changing published articles unless they contain a factual error, and this was not a factual error. (It’s possible that the author also had some adversarial motives for publishing the name—it did happen in the context of a disagreement between her and hilzoy—but I don’t know of any clear or direct evidence for that.)
So the main storyline here might be about the media having its own customs and not much caring about what happens to the people that they cover. The press does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of stories which it can tell to its audience. I’m not sure what implications (if any) this has about what to do now.