Every media site on the Web, including this one, wants “user-generated content.” But what happens when a user wants to generate content under a pseudonym such as “Anti-Christ”?
For 72-year-old Charles Merrill — a member of both the Merrill Lynch and Johnson & Johnson families — it meant having a North Carolina newspaper yank his posting privileges after two weeks of using that moniker. “Offensive,” the paper called it.
Being a devilish sort who not only questions authority but defies it, Merrill began kicking up a fuss over the newspaper’s stance, going so far as to issue a press release that highlighted the fact that the seemingly conservative Times-News of Hendersonville, N.C., is owned by the notoriously liberal New York Times.
“I was originally posting as Charles 6,” Merrill told me in an e-mail interview. “The other bloggers started referring to me as Charles666. I decided since they saw me as the Anti-Christ, with the number of the ‘beast,’ I might as well hand them the whole enchilada and take the username Anti-Christ.”
My inquiries to the Hendersonville paper produced a reply from the New York Times public relations department which read: “When (Merrill) changed his username to Anti-Christ, the online director received content alerts from other users and the account was suspended as it violated a portion of the site’s posting policy, as follows: ‘Users agree not to . . . engage in antisocial, disruptive, or destructive acts, including ‘flaming,’ ‘flooding,’ ‘trolling,’ and ‘griefing’ as those terms are commonly understood and used on the Internet. . . . Specifically, the username Anti-Christ is considered a form of trolling; that is, intentionally constructed to disrupt, offend and illicit angry responses from other users, as opposed to fostering civil discourse.”
Oh, piffle. One man’s trolling is another’s irreverence.
Merrill describes himself as an artist and “self-made millionaire,” cousin to the Merrill Lynch founder of the same name, and husband to the late Evangeline (Johnson), “the only daughter of Johnson & Johnson founder, Robert Wood Johnson.” He’s also a member and financial backer of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
“Ironically, the New York Times, in a Feb. 28 editorial this year, argued on behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s position and against the Bush Administration stand on mixing up religion with the government,” Merrill said in his press release. “Yet, on the other hand, the Times-controlled newspaper says I can’t have a username such as Anti-Christ. Frankly, I am very surprised at the Times bigoted position and being suspended because of my username. It is taking away my First Amendment rights as a U.S. citizen to express myself as an atheist.”
I’m with Merrill on a few points, not so much on others:
The Times-News has every right and responsibility to set its own standards, as does every publication. Personally, I wouldn’t prohibit a writer from using “Anti-Christ” as a pseudonym or in an appropriate reference within text. But I don’t work for the Times-News and do not live in North Carolina. It’s not discrimination or censorship on the part of the newspaper; it’s a subjective business call. Newspapers are allowed to make such calls — even when wrong.
Merrill’s been wronged, but it’s the garden-variety kind, not a federal case.
On the role of the New York Times, Merrill’s just off-base. No newspaper chain dictates policy to its subsidiaries at that level of granularity — or, at least no newspaper chain should do so.
Finally, you should know that Merrill is gay — and I know that fact appears irrelevant — however, it’s important in understanding his position that the paper’s decision amounts to foisting religious conventions upon him: “It was much harder to come out as an atheist in America,” he tells me, “than it was for me to come out as a gay man.”
Last word: Publishers can expect to confront these types of issues in direct proportion to the degree with which they embrace user-generated content — a reasonable price to pay, but a price nonetheless.
The address is buzz@nww.com. Use any name you want.
