I have an ethics question regarding quoting sources I'd love to run by y'all. The most vulnerable and raw insights of our industry are often shared in online community spaces, often with anonymous profiles. It's here that people are willing to be more open about sensitive topics (lots of capital vs labor discussion). Does it cross an ethical line to pull quotes, anonymize them, and use them as conversation starters for stories? The most mild use case is integrating them into articles as additional sources. The most aggressive is a "confessions" series where the entire article is answering a question in a quote.

personally i would expect someone to ask permission first before quoting me, even if it's anonymised! that way it's not a surprise, and you're getting that consent.

I also wonder about the authority that you'd lose by anonymizing them. We believe quotes because they're cited and published, often with a face and a name. That's not always possible, I just wonder if they'll lose potential value as sources if they're anonymized. I guess it depends on the content you're making though.

I’d ask for their consent, even if it’s anonymized.

I agree with Whitney re: authority. I think you could summarize or generalize the sentiments by referring to "online communities" or "online community X" but then back it up with real people's sentiments, if possible (even if it's only one person)

A Confessions series would be awesome IMO probably not great for search, but you would get clicks from your other channels ppl click on that stuff all the time. that's essentially what Reddit is in a lot of ways

That's kind of what I was thinking @rapid-whale-45150. Very authentic content that hits home in a way that's harder to do for publishers.