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Courts Begin To Frown On Online Badmouthing
Whistler's Mother writes: "Employers are winning key legal victories against former workers who criticize them online. Rulings in the waning days of 2001 could have a chilling effect on workers' use of cyberspace for years to come, civil libertarians say. The battle over Internet free speech also is heating up as more firms crack down on grousing by laid-off staff. Read the whole story here."
The problem is that you can sued for making true statements that some corporation or wealthy individual finds inconvenient or offensive. Do a google search on SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) or see this. You may win in court and end up bankrupt due to legal fees.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
slander
1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
v. tr.
To utter a slander about.
v. intr.
To utter or spread slander.
1.
a. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
b. The act of presenting such material to the public.
2. The written claims presented by a plaintiff in an action at admiralty law or to an ecclesiastical court.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Yes, you can chase someone for libel. Try reading some laws. The article doesn't deal with slander, since slander is verbal, not printed. Notice the article says that anonymous posters' identities cannot be exposed unless there is proof of damage. The companies can chase, it's just that they won't get anywhere without proof that the allegations are untrue and can cause damage. There's nothing about new laws in the article, just new precedents set. You can take someone to court for anything, even if there's a law saying you can't. The judge still has to rule on the case. Throwing the case out for being something that shouldn't be in courts is a ruling.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
Libel and slander are subsets of defamation. Libel is defamation by means of publishing, e.g. printed or broadcast (or netcast) dissemination of a harmful and nonprivileged untruth. Slander is defamation by means of spoken words. Truth is a complete defense to all forms of defamation. Privilege can be a defense, for example if the defamation is made from the witness stand in a court case or by a Congresscritter speaking on the floor or in committee (really, see Article I Section 6 of the US Constitution). Finally, it is harder to make a defamation lawsuit stick if the defamee is a "public figure." There are related civil wrongs ("torts") such as "invasion of privacy" and "intentional infliction of emotional distress" under which even true statements can be actionable. IAAL. And remember kids, in order to win your lawsuit, even for a false and defamatory statement, you have to have suffered damages such as provable economic loss (e.g. losing your job), or really severe emotional distress.
Other have already noticed this, but the article was totally devoid of facts arount the case:
1. Varian case: 14,000 messages is huge effort, but if the claims were both pretty hard to call one way or the other... For all we know, the manager accused of be homophobic may have been gay, or something like that. There could be something wrong there, but we weren't given enough info to tell.
2. Intel case: I may be remembering this wrong, but all Intel went after and got was a court order to stop sending e-mail. I don't think it was a lawsuit...
3. printCafe: They haven't won this case, yet. They haven't even gotten the court to tell them who it is, yet. Companies have been trying to do this all along, until they succeed (when they shouldn't), it doesn't contribute to the conclusion.
Bottom line, there is no trend to back up the article's claim, MAYBE one case...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
IIRC he posted the emails to Intel email accounts, and that was the basis of Intel's action.
Also IIRC, he didn't just post 35,000 emails, but had an email list of 35,000 email addresses and sent several emails (6?) to each. That's a lot of spam.
Basically, it looks like this is what you get when you take a group of kids and let them run around in the court system. IMHO, Delfino should have grown up and just walked away - when you get fired from a job, for whatever reason, it's really stupid to sue for your job back. Sue for damages, sure, but for crying out loud don't work for people that you know hate you!
The relevance to the internet is extremely minor. Most of the activity regarding this case occurred on the job, and simply dragged on in various message boards on the internet.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
"Of course there is [a right to anonymity], and the Supreme Court has upheld it."
There is not, and they have not.
You are wrong.
"Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. Accordingly, an author's decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment."
U.S. Supreme Court, McIntyre v. Ohio (1995).
I found this at http://www.gilc.org/speech/anonymous/.
Thats always been the requirement for court action.
The cases sited here have been false and damaging.
Electronic communication accelerates the making of claims and discovery of prepetrators.