Defamation suit tests online anonymity

Two Yale law students file suit against online message board, including subpoenas for 28 anonymous posters.

The story "Defamation suit tests online anonymity" published June 17, 2007 at 11:43 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[rick7069]

Maybe this time

I must agree that under extreme circumstances and only extreme circumstances, like threatening rape or murder, people should not be able to hide in anonymity. Saying this, it does scare me to allow the law any access to finding these people out, not that it shouldn't be done in this case, it should, but I know that once the precedent is established, the law will go further and start using it to get people without there being an extreme circumstance. Government simply can not help itself, it always takes the whole rope is you offer an inch. Government is evil. And, having said this, I am a computer geek, and if it was me they were after, they would have another thing coming. Multiple IP tunnels, fake browser info, after all the money spent to get the subpoenas, what was it the lawyers said - "But they are about to find out that this is how it works."

[wangbang]

whoop-de-do

Are we supposed to be impressed by your geek bluster?

[Penguinisto]

"geek"?

...are you sure you can claim the title? A simple anon proxy (there are plenty out there) would insure total anonymity, esp. one located overseas (beyond the reach of subpoenas).

While I agree that government itself shouldn't have wanton access to site and ISP records, I have ZERO problems with a justified subpoena issued by a lawyer for a private citizen, or a gov't-reqested one approved by Grand Jury to get whatever records are required.

/P

[SpectateSwamp]

Not all Defamation statements will be false

All the stories the old media wouldn't handle. Where the statements are true. Those are the stories that need telling. Defamate away on those with no character. A few innocents will get caught up in it all.

[PzkwVIb]

If its TRUE,

then would it be defamation? I know that truth is a defebse against both libel and slander.

[wl_daniel]

a few innocents

I truly hope that you will be one of those.

[sanenazok]

She's stupid, that's why she didn't get hired

I don't know her, nor do I care about the problems of "these" people (meaning ivy league grads). However, regardless of what was said on the website, NO HIRING decision would EVER be done based on some anonymous postings and name-calling. She thinks she entitled to a job just because her parents paid for her to go to an expensive school where she played along. Sorry, good people don't get jobs all the time. As far as I know the job market for lawyers is cyclical anyways so she could be trying to find work at the wrong time for her specialty.

I'm sure she's at fault in this somewhere too. She must have pissed someone off since most people don't start calling one another ******* and ****** just out of the blue.

[jeolmeun]

Sue sanenazok

sanenazok posted, "I don't know her" and "I'm sure she's at fault in this somewhere too."

Why does sanenazok post this?

[jeolmeun]

Did she piss you off?

"She must have pissed someone off since most people don't start calling one another ******* and ****** just out of the blue."

I guess "someone" isn't "most people". I guess you aren't "most people" either, since you posted, "She's stupid". Did she **** you off?

[Vinhasa]

Are you stupid or just ignorant?

"NO HIRING decision would EVER be done based on some anonymous postings and name-calling."

I guess you are ignorant of the hiring departments methods at many companies. In fact many companies do in fact take anonymous posts made about a job applicant into consideration and if they are bad enough will solely base the decision not to hire even if all other qualifications are outstanding.

You see, many companies have a reputation to uphold and with something like a law firm or accounting firm their reputation, and the reputations of their employees, mean their financial future. They will not get the clients if the consumer base thinks that they company or its? employees are immoral or are untrustworthy.

[jeolmeun]

Anonymous Free Speech?

Do anonymous people have freedom of speech?

[My-Self]

Free speech & anonymity

If anonymous speech is not allowed, then people can only comment on those who have less power / money than themselves. This silences any comment about an organization (corporate, union, politics) except by other organizations. Anonymous free speech / whistleblowing need to be protected.

In such online harrassment cases, there should clearly be an exception, but it must be carefully worded to prevent such disclosure to become automatic whenever a libel complaint is filed.

[hounddoglgs]

a bunch of cowards

I hope she takes these cowards to the cleaners. If you want to make personal attacks, have the balls to put your money where you're mouth is and do it in the open.

I can't believe there are idiots here actually trying to justify vicious personal attacks that include threats of rape and sodomy just because "she must have pissed someone off".

[qwerty75]

Do I need to point out the irony?

Calling someone, even an anonymous person, a coward, is a personal attack.

Yet you are anonymous.

Gotta love irony.

Yes, I am anonymous, no I am not personally attacking you, just point out the contradiction and irony in your statement.

[frankly0]

Brian Leiter is NOT a disinterested party

It might have been good had the article at least bothered to mention that Brian Leiter is himself hardly a disinterested party in this dispute. Among the people who were ridiculed on that board were Brian Leiter himself. I have no idea exactly how it started and who might have been at fault and in what ways, but the man clearly has a major personal axe to grind at this stage. Quoting him as though he were some dispassionate authority in this dispute is not exactly what I'd call fair reporting.

In general, while some of the extreme things said on that board were way, way out of line, it does strike me that there are a group of PC Police law and other professors who appear all too willing to exploit the situation to enforce generally "correct" online behavior. That they have so little respect for the possible chilling implications this suit may have on free speech should probably not surprise us (for all his protestations, what does a wingnut like Volokh care about ANY of our liberties, when they become inconvenient? For God's sake, the man was ready to dispense with the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.)

I certainly can't and won't defend the posters on that board who made up lies about these students. That is simply deplorable and inexcusable. (On the other hand, I'd like to see some real proof that the lies were actually damaging, particularly precisely because they were just anonymous posts).

But the cadre of professors who have come to jump on the posters scare me even more. I have no idea what their limits are. Virtually everything they say seems consistent with them attempting to treat ANY kind of non-PC or ridiculing statement as grounds for a law suit and exposure. If they have any bounds past which they think that free speech should certainly be allowed, I don't know what they are.

They are frightening people, in the apparent grip of some fanaticism, and without any sense of rationality and proportion constraining them.

[frankly0]

Another point...

The suit apparently lists 28 posters as being subpoenaed.

While I'd guess that SOME of the posts on that board were in fact menacing and quite vicious, I wonder just how far down the scale in terms of viciousness one has to go to round up 28 posters as culprits. Unfortunately, I can't seem yet to find the court documents online in any obvious place.

I'd like to see how bad truly the less offensive of those 28 posters might be. While the article describes posts that supposedly threaten one or both of the women with rape, isn't it pretty likely that only one or a few posters actually said such things? The importance of the less offensive posters who are also rounded up here is that it shows where the plaintiffs and their supporters are trying to draw the line when it comes to speech they think should be punished by exposure at minimum.

What strikes me is the possible disparity between the claimed damage of these posts, which, I gather, at worst was the purely speculated loss of a summer internship, and the legal and social damage that the plaintiffs and their supporters would inflict on the lives and the careers of 28 posters -- not to mention the larger chilling effect they would gladly impose on the free speech of the online community. Perhaps some of those 28 would fully deserve the disgrace. But count me sceptical that all 28 would.

What I wonder is if this lawsuit and those it inspires don't become a way of imposing the twisted, rigid, stifling, and sanctimonious standards of academe onto the entire online community. For example, if, online, one makes a remark about a woman's looks, even quite innocuous by real world standards, does that become a basis of a lawsuit, because of some purported "damage" to the woman? Would Brian Leiter and the entire hysterical law professor brigade support such law suits, simply because that's the inflexible code that permeates academe?

[tonyc666]

You are sooo wrong...

It's as simple as this-- Freedom of Speech? Yes. I have every right to say in public (or online) things which are considered 'opinionable', like "I think the clothes you wear are hideous" or "I think you're an idiot". Why? Because it's recognized as simply my opinion.

But if I say things such as "Mr. Joe Blow is untrustworthy because he has been convicted of a crime", well, that is libel. I've misrepresented a fact which could threaten is ability to be hired for a job.

This has NOTHING to do with the Political Correctness police... the folks in the forum in question (and others) are hiding behind masks and saying unconciousable things that they wouldn't dare say in real life in front of a real crowd. They are cowards. If they can be sued in real life under traditional laws, then they should have no ability to hide all because it's in an Internet forum.

[Gromit801]

Here's the thing....

Freedom of speech, is not freedom from consequences.

What those people did is cyber-stalking and harrassment, certainly
slander if they can't see it as libel. And shall we consider the
terrorist threats? (Threatening bodily harm is legally a terrorist
threat.)

I hope those posters get outed and their heads handed to them.

[frankly0]

where are you going with this?

Do you happen to know for a fact that all 28 of these posters actually issued genuine threats against these women? Somehow, I seriously doubt that.

And what fits under your rubric of "harassment" and "cyberstalking"? Saying a woman has nice breasts? Telling a politically incorrect joke, or using a politically incorrect term? If Imus were to post online with his infamous "nappy headed hos" remark, should the courts enable the exposure of his identity via subpoenas? Where do you draw the line -- or do you?

Do you understand the concept that some things might be morally wrong, but not legally punishable? Or are you of the opinion that we should legislate morality?

[rick7069]

Maybe

"A simple anon proxy (there are plenty out there) would insure total anonymity"
It would from a casual look. But, it depends how bad they want you.