The Benefits of Running an Anonymous Blog
It certainly seems like we live in a time where hiding things is becoming next to impossible. You don’t have to be particularly fond of conspiracy theories to know that, for a large part, there is a way to trace what we are doing and with whom. A lot of that tracing happens online, where we often readily give out our personal information.
But sometimes we don’t have to. When you’re starting a blog, for example, no one can make you put your real name anywhere on it. You can run an anonymous blog. But why should you?
That’s what we’ll try to explain in this article. We’ll cover:
Even though we’ve gotten so used to seeing our names everywhere and anywhere online, the need for anonymity hasn’t gone anywhere – it’s only getting more pronounced. Being able to be heard, but without the peril of being recognized – something you achieve with anonymous blogging – can be appealing in multiple ways. Let’s examine what you get from starting an anonymous blog.
You Can Safeguard Your Privacy
Having your voice heard is one thing; having a voice tied to you is another. If you’re the kind of person who is careful about their privacy and who doesn’t want to be bothered in their private life, then it makes perfect sense to run an anonymous blog.
If you’re not in it for the fame, even better – you can enjoy having your digital box to stand on without having to shout at actual people. And no one will know they’re shouting back at you.
You Can Tackle a Tricky Subject Matter
You don’t have to write about something controversial to get people all riled up. The internet is huge and well-populated, so whatever you say is likely to offend somebody. That’s no excuse to be rude or go after people, though.
The trickiness of the subject matter can be of a different kind. You can hold an unpopular opinion, propagate an alternative lifestyle, even advocate for things that are taboo in your society. In that case, having an anonymous blog can help you prevent persecution.
You Can Test Without Fear of Failure in Public
If you’re new to blogging, you might not know what to expect. You could be unsure whether you’ll have enough time and resources to devote to the blog. It’s even possible you’re having problems coming up with new topics regularly.
All of the above might make you feel like there are high chances of your blog becoming a failure. And it’s true, your blog might fail. A lot, if not most, of them, do after a while. But until that happens, you can enjoy sharing your opinions safely and anonymously.
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So there are certain benefits that you get from starting an anonymous blog, and they might be enough to entice you to go through the process. But before we get to that part, let’s see if there are some things that you shouldn’t try to achieve by starting an anonymous blog. There are limits to what an anonymous blog could and should help you with, and we’ll mention a few.
It Won’t Help You Break the Law with Impunity
There are a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t start an anonymous blog so you can try to break the law and get away with it. You shouldn’t be doing illegal things online because, well, you shouldn’t do illegal things in the first place.
The ways you can anonymize your blog are not 100% perfect. They might protect you against the regular snooping you’d expect from online users. But they’re no match for what law enforcement can do nowadays.
It Probably Won’t Protect You from the Government
In rare cases, people break the law for the public interest. This is like what whistleblowers sometimes do – move around legal restraints to shine the light on corruption, bad governance, and other wrongdoings.
The decision to put their neck on the line in these cases is completely up to the whistleblowers. But they shouldn’t make that decision believing that something like an anonymous blog can provide ample protection. It can’t.
It Doesn’t Give You a License to Be a Bully
Everyone needs to vent. Having an anonymous blog where you’d go and speak about the things you can’t usually speak about with your friends, family or coworkers might even be good for you. But you should still practice that freedom with good measure.
It wouldn’t be a good idea to start an anonymous blog just so you can bully or harass people, spread lies about them, or spread any kind of hate. There’s already plenty of that in the world, don’t add to the pile. It might swallow us all one day.
Now that you know what you’re getting from it, as well as some of the wrong reasons to start doing it, let’s see how you can make a reasonably anonymous blog. There are probably ways to squeeze out more anonymity, but let’s stay off the Dark Web and focus on what most of us can do fairly easily.
The first step would be to create an email service in a fake name. That email address you nabbed that’s “first name. last name @ service provider” and looks all professional – the least you could do is not use that. Have an email address specifically made for your anonymous blog and nothing else.
Next, you’ll need a domain name and hosting. Now, this is where you give your real information, but you can do something to try to make it harder for someone to find it out. Work with a hosting provider that offers a Whois.com privacy option that makes you harder to track using Whois.com. You’ll have to pay a little extra for it, but anyone trying to look your blog up on Whois.com will only see your provider’s info.
Finally, you can start using a VPN when accessing your blog. VPN is short for “virtual private network,” and it’s a service you can use to access your blog from an IP address other than your own. It might sound like an advanced step but using a VPN service is relatively easy and commonplace, even though it might again add to the overhead of the endeavor.
Let’s Wrap It Up!
Running an anonymous blog can be beneficial for various reasons. It allows you a degree of online privacy, it lets you be more daring and creative, and it can help you get used to having your words read by other people. Plus, it’s easy to set up an anonymous blog, even if it does come with a small price, so you can have it up and running in no time. Just remember that having an anonymous blog doesn’t hide your identity 100%, and it’s not a tool for breaking the law or harassing people.
