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What Should You Do When Attacked Online?
Argylengineotis asks: "Recently, a friend of mine was viciously attacked by an unknown third party over the internet. This is not a typical case of cyber-crime either: the attack is in the form of slander, libel and posting of private information in public forums with the intent of encouraging further harassment. On top of everything, this attack is focused on forcing my friend out of business! Though we suspect certain people of perpetrating this series of crimes, the only way our friend could prove anything is with the resources of certain server logs belonging to the forum where this attack is taking place. This puts the forum in an awkward position, as they don't want to jeopardize their common-carrier status by setting a precedent of forking over server logs when somebody says something someone else doesn't like, be it overly critical or potentially slanderous, and they've referred my friend to their lawyers. My pal's local police force is totally unsympathetic and ultimately incapable of dealing with something like this, and the FBI won't even take a report, because there are no concrete points where there is verifiable damage, just a few mean-spirited posts in an anonymous forum. What, if any, are other possible recourses in a situation like this? Should my friend somehow try to find the money to hire an attorney to try and get the server logs (if they even exist)? Should my friend try and take matters into his own hands, (vigilantism)? Is there anyone we can call or write to that can exert some justice? Or does my friend simply have to resign himself to being the victim of a pretty nasty smear campaign?"
Online forum? He can post well reasoned, sane replies to the same forum. Anyone who goes to the trouble of reading the forum will run across them and be able to make up their own mind.
Unless your friend has the money and desire to pursue this legally, outside of the internet, then the only way to fight 'public' slander, libel, abuse, etc, is to present yourself in that 'public' forum, and let the readers know who you really are.
But, quite frankly, it sounds like this is a small time deal, and I bet the only thing impacted will be your friend's pride.
Of course, you're asking slashdot. I mean, really, all we can do is stroke your ego by saying insipid things like, "Dude, you are so right to toast him!"
As with all things in life, this too shall pass.
-Adam
demand the posts be taken down from the site where they were posted. It is illegal for a site to refuse to remove personal information which was posted without permission. There are no legal loopholes around this.
Some sites, such as slashdot, refuse to take down any posts, but a simple legal letter from a lawyer will quickly change anyones mind.
good luck!
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
First get these definitions out of the way: http://www.hfac.uh.edu/comm/media_libel/libel/defi nition.html
If it's written, it's libel, if it's spoken it's slander.
Because your friend has access to this message board, he has an opportunity to respond. You can be sued for saying "Joe Smith is a bed-wetter" on television if Joe Smith isn't there to defend himself. However, if Joe can defend himself, such as via your message board, he is a "Limited Public Figure." This means that you must demonstrate that there was actual malice, "the act of publishing or broadcasting statements with prior knowledge of the inaccuracy of the statement or a reckless disregard for the truth."
Furthermore, it must be shown that the aim of this malice was to damage his reputation.
If the party in question said "Your friend is an alcoholic and a pedophile.", knew that he was neither, and did so solely to harm his reputation, that's libel.
If the party in question said "Your friend's product is designed so it will always break after a week.", knowing that was not the case for the sole purpose of harming his reputation, that's libel.
However, if they said "Don't buy this guy's products, they are going to break." and they do so because you have a 50% return rate, then there's truth to what they are saying.
Your post is so vague it's hard to tell, but here's the screnario I'm imagining...
Your buddy sells whatever, he sold someone a broken one, they snagged a leaked memo talking about defective items or whatever, and he decided to to post it on a message board somewhere. Your friend got his panties all in a knot, and here we are.
Why is my guess so skewed against the poster? Well, because the Libel laws are pretty damn clear; had there been a real case of Libel, the poster's buddy would be counting the cash right now, instead of bitching about what 40 year old geeks are saying about him from their mother's basements to ask slashdot.
Either that, or I post on that message board, and am trying to keep you from filing suit. ;)
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
This story smells extremely fishy. I don't think we know all that's going on here. Something doesn't add up. It seems heavily slanted in favor of only one side of this dispute. Do we have any proof that this is even true? It could be misrepresentation, exaggeration, or out-and-out lying. I wish we knew what the other side of the story was.
I'd like to say this to the person facing these problems:
What aren't you telling us? People are harassing you like this for no reason whatsoever? I don't believe it. What did you do to bring this upon yourself? Did you harass them first? Did you harass friends of theirs? Did you attack their websites, mail-bomb them, or make threats against them and their families? People don't launch into campaigns of harassment unprovoked. What aren't you telling us? I'd really like to know.
For all we know, you could've been engaging for years in behavior many times worse than what's currently being done to you, and somebody finally decided to stand up to you. "Vigilante justice" indeed.
I'm not saying that whatever you've done in the past justifies what's being done to you now, but maybe you should examine your own life before you start casting stones at others.
What Should You Do When Attacked Online?
1) Wonder WHY someone would attack you. Is it plain vandalism, or are you in some kind of business which make people angry (politics, weaponery, multinational), or you may live in a country that makes people angry (iraq, usa, israel, taiwan,...)
2) Talk to you opponents, or if you can't reach them, someone representative for their opinion. Convince them with sound arguments that they're doing the wrong thing, listen to their explanation of why they think you're doing the wrong thing. Ie. Communicate. This crucial stage solves 90% of the problems people tend to have.
3) Adopt to your new understanding of the situation, and see what happens. Stay calm, be patient. Remember that your life isn't on the line (yet).
4) If none of the above work leave some common sense out: switch to diplomacy, laws, threats, or technological defenses. (Note however, that more agressive tactics don't necessarily tackle the remaining 10% of the problems, but rather 10% of 10%.)
5) Wait for a totalitarian system of corporate control to take care of all of our daily lives, as well as those of our attackers.
--
Just my $0.02 as a hippie
What a pathetically overly legalistic society we live in these days. The party here may in fact be guilty of libel, slander, or some other offense, but there's something the defamed can do other than sue.
He can GROW UP and handle some immature bozo who bothers him in online forums like a man. It's an online service, and people know that anything said must be taken *cum grano salis*, particularly when said by someone who's being a jerk via anonymous harassment. If an online kook can cause real damage to this person's business by posting nonsense on online forums, then quite frankly it wasn't much of a business to start with.
At the risk of being flamed for not jumping to the defense of the wronged party, people really need to grow up and learn that fretting over online kooks causes infinitely more harm than the kooks themselves can usually perpetrate.
Look at me, for example. As a writer I did investigative journalism into the world of online child pornography, and because I took positions such that the producers of hardcore materials should be more aggressively sought while the downloaders should largely be left alone because the manpower is being wasted, and that Playboy-like softcore materials being produced in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states are most likely harmless and may serve as a release valve for the sexual desires of borderline pedophiles, I managed to accumulate some kooks of my own.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with my assessment of the situation after doing legitimate and careful journalistic research by interviewing people involved in the trade of such electronic material, as well as law enforcement and legislative officials, one can probably agree that I wouldn't deserve to be harassed and even threatened online for a very long time. Yet I was, for merely expressing an opinion. One of a few kooks I accumulated followed me around to several different forums, including ones where I used my real identity. Did he cause harm to my reputation? Maybe, but anyone who'd take a kook or troll's commentary to heart is a moron in the first place. Did he cost me online contacts? Again, maybe. Did he threaten me and know my real identity? Yes. Did he post personal information on public forums? Yes. Did he commit libel? Sure. Did I sue him? Of course not--why would any rightminded individual bother?
What did I do? I stopped responding, went about my business, and he went away. In other words, I acted like a man instead of bringing lawyers into it like a whiny little pussy. Quite frankly, people need to just grow up about such matters instead of fattening the attorneys.
But most importantly, people should be mature enough not to be bothered by online kooks in the first place. Everyone has enemies. That's just life. Just don't let the bastards get you down. Nothing is as harmful as one's own worries.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
IAAL, but no expert on this stuff. I can however agree that libel is a "disfavored action" which kinda means it pisses courts off and is difficult to win. Often a libel action results from a childish squabble, and sometimes it implicates free speech interests.
However, what the poster describes is much more worrisome because of the implied threat to his business and his privacy. This implicates additional torts such as interference with business relations, invasion of privacy, any monetary damages resulting from same, etc. which are much more readily actionable. If an action is begun, the plaintiff will have access to discovery, subpoena, etc. (Some of these claims may have criminal analogs, which may not get the DA excited but may help the harasser to sober up.) The ISP might oppose a subpoena, but probably won't.
In any event, anticipate spending thousands on litiagtion, or representing yourself and spending hundreds of hours on it.
It's an uphill battle, and probably not worth undertaking because of the costs and your ulcers. It would be important to objectively assess what threat this person poses, as opposed to how personally upsetting their actions are. It sucks, but one hopes your customers or business partners are smarter than to rely on something they heard from some anonymous person on a newsgroup.
My sympathies, I'm sure it hurts. But you may do well enough posting calm denials, or ignoring the person altogether. You might also -enjoy- a little informal detective work to determine who the person is (lure them into the open), but don't retaliate in kind or piss the person off even more.