There are competing ethical imperatives, and there’s a balance to be found. It is basic courtesy to respect a pseudonym or some in-confidence knowledge about a person generally, but should that expected courtesy take precedence over the protection of other people from harm which could be avoided if they knew what you know?
James Massola’s outing of Grog’s Gamut‘s legal name and position in The Australian is an example of silencing of the less powerful: anyone who will not or cannot expose all of their words present and past, their name, their face, their body, their clothes, their family to mass scrutiny is being denied the ability to have political influence.
