Personal Narrative Essay Outline: Anonymity on the Internet
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The right to anonymity over the Internet must be guaranteed to people due to the Fourth Amendment and the Supreme Court, and only information which people explicitly agree to offer can be accessed.
People must be guaranteed anonymity over the Internet so they can voice insights and opinions, a right given by the First Amendment, freely without fear of persecution or danger.
My father was a vocal critic of Woodbridge Township’s (where we used to live) to cut spending from its middle schools, thus vastly reducing the capabilities of sports and extracurricular activities
he voiced his concerns about the well-being of the students on an Internet blog, which gathered the following of many town residents and parents
after several blog posts, he found that the township was attempting to gain a subpoena against the blog website seeking to identify my father, who blogged under an unrevealing username
my father’s lawyer friend informed if that if the township succeeded in gaining a subpoena, my father might be persecuted
the township failed in gaining the subpoena due to a similar case ruled before, Manapalan v. Moskovitz
Judge Flynn ruled that, “I recognize there are First Amendment issues with the past administration…anyone has a right to make their feelings clear…and first of all the blogger… as a right not to be drawn into the litigation and forced to reveal identity or to impede on his or her First Amendment rights simply on a suspicion, however founded or unfounded.”
Had my father’s anonymity been breached, he might have suffered persecution for simply voicing his opinions: for this reason, anonymity must be guaranteed to Internet users to allow people to fully express their freedom of speech.
Second body paragraph:
Topic Sentence: If people are not guaranteed anonymity over the Internet, they can be severely blamed or persecuted for reasons they are not responsible for.
Supporting evidence:
-three years ago, when I was in eighth grade, I was unfairly blamed for posting something on the Internet
– my eighth grade history teacher had all of his students participate in an online class forum where everyone posts their ideas anonymously on sensitive topics such as abortion
-I left my online account open at the library inadvertently and posted harmless jokes on the forum
-my teacher somehow found out that the jokes were posted by “me”, probably by contacting the website administrator, and had the school administration suspend me for a day
even though it was my fault for not signing off on my account, I was unjustly punished even though the jokes posted were detrimental to the learning process, it would have been better if Internet anonymity was upheld so that no one would have been punished unfairly
Closing Statement: Granting Internet anonymity prevents people from being unjustly blamed or persecuted for actions they did not commit, even if the actions warranted “probable cause” as said in the Fourth Amendment.
Internet anonymity allows people to establish their feelings on the Internet without creating unnecessary negative publicity, as can happen when people’s online identities are revealed. Virgil Griffith created the Wikipedia Scanner in 2007, a search tool that tracks Wikipedia entries back to their source IP addresses
even though the Scanner can help prevent people from posting incorrect things, it can create unnecessary publicity for celebrities or government agencies posting entries
for example, if a celebrity edits his or her own page on Wikipedia by adding a true fact that is at the same enhancing his or her image, the media will portray him or her in a negative light
The right of the people to be anonymous over the Internet allows them to express their voice without creating publicity that they do not desire
The right of anonymity over the Internet must be guaranteed and people should be allowed to access information only which others have explicitly agreed to. The Fourth Amendment and the rulings of the Supreme Court support Internet anonymity.