I wrote a little while back about why I blog anonymously, but the last couple of weeks has made me even more glad I do - and even more terrified about anyone discovering my identity. Today is the high court trial of a man who made a stupid joke on Twitter - Mark Chambers might have been foolish but he's not a terrorist - and yet the time, money and energy of a whole bunch of people is being taken up presumably to try to establish this. Even more scary to my mind is this story, of a woman whose 5 year old autistic son was forcibly taken in the middle of the night because of her blog, in which she did nothing but express her wishes to do her best for her son. This is terrifying. The blog has been removed for legal reasons, but please pray to whatever you pray to to get that little boy home.
I think many people use the internet to vent, to be and explore their true selves - or the selves they would never dare to be in public. I certainly do and I do feel like it's a necessity for me. I feel like I'm a better mum for it because I've got a place I can turn to at any time and just 'get it out'. Anonymity allows you to speak your mind and mull over your thoughts - without fear of the real world repercussions that are clearly happening more and more often. The downside of that is that while it's true for the people who just want to vent their personal stuff, it's also true for the trolls, who don't take responsibility for their personal stuff and instead vent it on other people.
