Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Speech Litigation
Shadowhawk writes "According to this story on ZDNN, AOL filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that defamation lawsuits against anonymous posters to the Internet are 'an illegitimate use of the courts to silence and retaliate against speakers whose statements, while unpleasant from the standpoint of the [plaintiff], were not unlawful.'" AOL's web page about the case has the brief they filed. AOL is making an important argument about abuses of the legal system to identify ISP subscribers.
Has Slashdot encountered this problem yet, with their Anonymous coward postings?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
1. That's kinda knee-jerk, isn't it?
2. It's in their interest, part 1: the article mentioned how corps like AOL and Yahoo have to respond to "hundreds" of subpoenas for their records every year.
3. It's in their interest, part 2: we'd be perfectly accepting of the New York Times stepping into a lawsuit like this, because we've got noble ideas (say) about their interest in Free Speech, The Greater Good, Rights of Man/Woman, etc. But really, AOL is, substantially, in the same business; cynical/true observations about the use of content to provide eyes for ads aside, both are publishers, and both have a certain interest -- ideal and practical -- in free speech.
In fact, in light of these points, I wonder why it hasn't happened before. I mean, I'm sure some ISP somewhere has done something similar -- but I don't recall hearing about an ISP on the scale of AOL doing this before. Or am I on crack?
Anyone?
Bueller...Bueller...
Carousel is a lie!
in the article it states that this is a "case in which the plaintiff (a state judge) is seeking discovery of the identity of a Doe defendant who allegedly posted defamatory material about the judge on a website the defendant created through AOL's service"
It is quite amusing to me that a judge is the person who is trying to limit someone's freedom of speech.
I really wish we could see what was posted about this guy.
-Lab-
Oh, and don't bother pointing out the irony of my pointing out that people won't use their real names when I post under "vinnythenose" (no, that's not my birthname ;) and don't give you any contact information :)
Anywho, good for AOL on protecting the rights of the anonymous. But I guess the question lies, is anonymity enoforcable? If I try to be anonymous, does that mean I should legally be anonymous, even if they can find out who I was (via IP addresses, logs, etc)?
Who is in the wrong in a posting situation. If I break my contract and try to dissuade people from purchasing from my company (assuming my contract has a clause like that). I am still wrong for doing that, even if I am anonymous. But if they can find out who I am, I'm no longer anonymous. Are they breaking my rights as an individual by finding out who I am? But I did break my contract...
AHHH!!!! I'm confusing myself! Anyhow, it's an interesting topic/thought.
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
Is a subscription to Zeroknowledge, and you wouldn't have to worry about them finding out who you are. People who are stirring up shit should always wear gloves...
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Slashdot got a subpoena from Microsoft when certain users posted how to open a package without reading their restrictive licensing. blue underpants was one of the users.
The Slashdot lawyers told them to ignore it, so they did. Case closed.
So, at least a long time ago, Slashdot protected all their user's rights, not just anonymous cowards. I'm not so sure about today.
They just love to go after people who say bad (but true) things about them online. They would like nothing better than to be able to identify anyone and everyone because it makes it easier to harrass critics. Remember anon.penet.fi? You can thank the clams (scientologists) for its demise. Check out www.xenu.net if you want to know the whole story about this criminal organization that pretends to be a religion
Lee Reynolds (yes OSA its me)
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
uhhh....... maybe you better start over at the beginning and read everything again.
Do they? Let's see. If they remove the guy's account then they lose money. If they give up the guy's name then they get bad publicity. If they try to be responsible for people using their service and what they do online then they dig their own grave.
I don't see this as being so "great of AOL as a corporation" because it's in their best financial interest to go the route they have chosen.
--
Garett
I think we all need to give AOL praise for this recent action. Granted, we like to cry and moan when corporations trample our rights and give us the shaft, but we also need to make it known when we approve of what they do, in the hopes that they will keep doing those things that make us happy :)
Sure, there may be some self-serving interest at the heart of this matter, but such is the way of capitalism. If their greed and annoyance at having to constantly deal with these cases results in their requesting that the courts block some of these ridiculous suits, I'm all for it.
-
The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Having fought about this in my undergraduate years, I was surprised that the numerous individuals who were identified by various message boards and scholastic institutions (Bonsaikitten, anyone?) were not more forceful in dealing with their revelers.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
I had planned to earn millions of $ by suing Anonymous Coward for emotional damage caused by goatse.cx posts.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I think that if they thought they could ever get the "AOL suckz" stuff removed they would go for it. But since they understand that that is not going to happen they do the right thing because they will lose if they have to be responsible for the anon or for that matter the non-anon users.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Huh??
AOL guys are the good guys this time?
I... I can't believe it! A Slashdot story taking AOL's side! michael must have gone temporarily out of his mind. Expect a retraction soon:
"Update: We're sorry, we just realized that we took the side of a major corporation. We hereby retract this article and all statements made within it. May God forgive us."
----
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
But I guess the question lies, is anonymity enoforcable? If I try to be anonymous, does that mean I should legally be anonymous, even if they can find out who I was (via IP addresses, logs, etc)?
;)
Sure. Why not?
People keep making a big deal about the DMCA saying that "Effectively" controls access (and the jokes about how in-effective CCA's CCS has been, as well as the scheme itself being poor encryption). But its been pointed out repeatedly that the word "Effective" means that a serious attempt has been made (or some such leagal nonsense. IANAL... and I don't play one on TV). If thats true though, then shouldn't an "Effective" attempt at maintaining ones anonymity be allowed to leagaly protect ones identity from further intrusion?
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
See http://aolcom.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-921517.html
Here is an extract :
This is not the first time AOL has come under fire by gay and lesbian rights groups. The most notable instance came when AOL admitted it had disclosed the member account of Timothy McVeigh, a naval officer, to a naval investigator. Because of the disclosure, the Navy discharged the sailor for "Homosexual Conduct Admittance" because he typed the word "gay" on his member profile under "Marital Status." He has since been reinstated.
Disclaimer : I work for AOL Time Warner and opinions are my own, not those of AOL Time Warner
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
Unfortunately, Congress with the help of Federal Courts and the Supreme Court have made laws which do abridge the freedom of speech.
Many justices have declared that some forms of speech are not protected by the First Amendment, even though the Amendment's language is very clear. It protects profanity, it protects lies, it protects hate, it protects rumor, it protects anything you or I might say.
It protects them for one reason, because it was the hope of the Drafters that bad speech would be pushed aside by the noble and intelligent people. Remember, these Drafters originally did not give the masses the power to elect a President.
In a system where there is no longer protected speech, anonymous speech is the next best thing. Until the First Amendment is restored to it's original strength (if it ever is), we only have anonymous speech to protect us when we know an ugly truth.
The reason you may not think anonymous speech is important to you, is because you may not have an ugly truth to tell. You may never have a reason to use anonymous speech. That would be fine. But don't deny yourself the right to use anonymous speech because you do not have the need for it now.
The United States of America was founded as a great experiment to see if wealthy, educated people were responsible enough to rule themselves. Unfortunately, year by year, we give up responsibility to a mythical being known as "The Government". The problem is, as we shed our responsibility, we also shed our rights.
The right of anonymous speech requires the listeners to be responsible enough to research the claims presented. I will accept that responsibility, in the event that I ever need to tell the world of an awful truth, or in the event that someone else needs to tell me an awful truth; a truth that would cost them their job, their standing in society, or even their life.
So I beg you all to think upon this before you claim that "Anonymous Cowards" should be forever done away with. Won't you take the responsibility too, to look into the claims of someone who must hide his identity? Or does that require too much effort?
Obviously AOL is not making a "friend" of the Pennsylvania Superior Court. ;) BOF stick together, ya know. I wonder how this would end if tried in Pennsylvania.
Perhaps the AOL half of TW/AOL isn't pure evil, more like 96.2%. Good luck to them on this battle.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I fully support anonymous speech, I think someone who is wary of repurcussions can use anonimity as an outlet to say what they really want/need to. I just wish that it less often meant a person being annoying, rude, spreading false info, or just being a flat out asshole... unfortunately a complete lack of consequences for actions can really being out the nasty side of people.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
It happened to me. It happened to Carla Virga when she said that Terminex sucks, and it happened to Joanne Crossby Tibbets when she complained about Best Foods. It happened to Paul David when he said that a Barbie doll was ugly.
Fight Spammers!
Maybe we can come up with enough money to purchase the necessary legislation to enact the above poster's idea.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This is a little offbeat, but the comment reminds
of a situation when I lived in Peking China 20
years ago. For a few months there was spot near
the West Point shopping center where people could
paste whatever papers they wanted. It was not
too far from one of hotels the foreign media
was confined to at that time, so material on that
wall started making it into the international
press. Initially most of the material were petty
complaints about bureaucrats who messed up peoples
lives during the cultural revolution not long
before that. Then some more serious anti-government stuff appeared.
Most signed with pseudonyms, though the police
photographed everyone in the act of posting something.
At first the stuff seemed genuine, but then it
got hard to tell if it was false slander,
government plants and the like.
The foreign press called it Democracy Wall because
it seemed to be showing human rights and freedom
of speech. The locals just called it the West Point Wall
(Xidian Cheng) after the location.
Well, it was closed down after a few months because
the government couldn't figure out what to make
of it, nor control it.
Any person or company who sues over anonymous libel or defamation has got serious problems in my book.
Any source of information should only be able to cause an amount of good or harm proportional to the credibility of the source. If a well known and respected news source such as the New York Times releases information that could be damaging to a company's image, the company has something to worry about, and if the information is incorrect they have a right to demand reparations from the NYT for causing possible damage to the company. A smaller news source could also cause damage, but it would likely be less to to less spread of information and possible less creadibility.
A truly anonymous internet poster essentially has zero credibility, because they have absolutely no reputation and nothing to lose from revealing incorrect information. No reasonable person would base a major opinion on the post of a single truly anonymous individual. Even if the information posted is valid, it should be verified through secondary (and hopefully more credible) sources before any decisions are made based on the information.
To hold anonymous individuals responsible for libel or defamation is to imply that the majority of the population will accept whatever they read on the internet (some people may, but it's not the responsibility of anyone else to watch out for the gullibility of others).
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
AOL is going to bat for one of their subscribers here.
1. AOL didn't roll over and give away the identity of "grantst99" when issued a subpoena asking for this information for use in a civil lawsuit. They notified the user who then anonymously appeared in court asking for dismissal of the suit. (which was granted)
2. Now that the suit has been taken up again in another state, AOL has filed an Amicus brief that might just have another positive impact for their user.
3. That they're going to this trouble means that they want their customers protected. While they say (in the brief) that users would leave for the competition if their anonymity were compromised, that's really not true for the vast majority of thier customer base. Most AOL users aren't the type to post anything of interest at all on the Internet. (anyone remember USENET in the mid to late 90s, and how bad AOL users were ragged on for "me too" posts?)
Read thier paper - it's incredibly interesting. I think it shows that they really do have an interest in Free Speech. And that while we should always be skeptical, we shouldn't always be cynical.
You are conflating apples and oranges. Spam is not a freedom-of-speech issue, it is a theft-of-bandwidth issue. Hate speech and trolls, on the other hand, are fundamentally matters of opinion, best addressed either by rebuttal or ostracism.
The responsibilities that go with freedom of speech are 1a)Recognizing that others have the same right, 1b)Recognizing that other rights (such as property rights) may not be violated to facilitate your speech, and 2)Recognizing that you'll need to apply some skull sweat in evaluating what you read -- freedom to speak necessarily includes the freedom to speak nonsense.
We also get the results of handing that responsibility to other people - censorware, draconian laws to deal with the unrestricted, unrestrained irresponsible speech of others (the Australian 'net censorship laws spring to mind as an example), and a general perception that curbing freedom of speech may not be such a bad thing after all...
Blaming censorship on people who speak provocatively is like blaming rape on women who dress provocatively. Both "arguments" excuse the inexcusable by transferring blame to the victim -- the very antithesis of "responsibility".
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
AOL's relationship to the government as an officially blessed monopoly depends on it. All they're trying to do is get past the whole 'lawsuitness' of it all so they can respond directly to lawyers without a subpoena and law enforcement w/o a search warrant.
Isn't this contrary to ethics? Why would it be unethical for one sibling to be on the same side in a legal case as the other sibling?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Not on the Internet, not always. 15 years ago you could post pretty much ANY outlandish flamebait you wanted without fear. I remember spewing some deep out-there crap in the 80's that would get me disconnected, fired, and/or sued into oblivion if I put my name on it today.
The elder days, when the net was a benevolent anarchy and there were only two kinds of authority: peer respect, and your sysadmin. It was a good thing and a bad thing.
Then we grew up.