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.
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.
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.
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."
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main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
"(a state judge) is seeking discovery of the identity of a Doe defendant who allegedly posted defamatory material about the judge"
/.'ers have posted about him...
It would be funny if his corrupted highness, MPAA Judge Kaplan were to try this over stuff I and other
On second thought, he might be afraid to... Filing such a suit would give the defendant the power of discovery to PROVE all the links between him and the MPAA that made him unqualified to preside over the DeCSS case...
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"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?