Slashdot Mirror
Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity
The Xoxo Reader writes "Reuters reports that two women at Yale Law School have filed suit for defamation and infliction of emotional distress against an administrator and 28 anonymous posters on AutoAdmit (a.k.a. Xoxohth), a popular law student discussion site. Experts are watching to see if the suit will unmask the posters, who are identified in the complaint only by their pseudonyms. Since AutoAdmit's administrators have previously said that they do not retain IP logs of posters, identifying the defendants may test the limits of the legal system and anonymity on the Internet. So far, one method tried was to post the summons on the message board itself and ask the defendants to step forward. The controversy leading to this lawsuit was previously discussed on Slashdot."
The women who filed this suit have no case. I also have it on good authority that they are terrible students who neglect their studies, sleep around, take drugs and will no doubt become awful lawyers not fit to pass the bar.
Furthermore, if they don't have sex with children, embezzle money, practise cruelty to animals and throw firebombs at orphans as a recreational activitiy, then my name is not Anonymous Coward.
IANAL, but honestly, I can't see how this could move forward unless the identities are revealed. How else are you going to serve a summons to "LawGuy69" and "LegallyBlonde11111one"? The laws regarding serving summons are pretty explicit.
What is even more surprising is that they allege that these law firms took those troll seriously.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Except that isn't what you've created, you naive jackass. There is no anonymity in the town square: people speaking their "brilliant or foolish" (or slanderous and defamatory) thoughts are identifiable, and the repercussions for their actions can range from social disapproval to legal sanction. Blanket anonymity creates the exact fucking opposite environment from that of the town square. What Mr. Cohen has created rather resembles a public toilet. This is the same problem with news articles that rely entirely on anonymous sources to divulge personal details about the subject: how is the content any more credible than the random scrawlings of an interstate rest area?
Anonymity is one thing if there is the possibility of unjust sanction for free speech, as in the case of whistleblowing. But if major law firms are, apparently, making decisions about others' character based on a bunch of anonymous cowards on online forums, it just goes to show that no amount of expensive education can cure idiocy.
Of course, Congress is mostly a bunch of lawyers, and it's fun to imagine leading politicians being brought up on specious charges. Perhaps I'll have a change of heart if the president gets impeached, and the impeachment cites "A reputable source named Sunburnt on an anonymous Internet forum, who repeatedly asserts that the President secretly collaborates with the North Korean government."
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
Hmmmmm consider say Zippy (the rudimentary Emacs psychiatrist) ... well what if an upgraded was programmed to be rude & offensive... and registered as a user to a bulletin board. Yes it mightn't pass a full Turing test but would it manage to libel ? Who'd be responsible ?
laws, problems, infringement on our personal freedom as in the "real world." The Web used to be an escape from all the bullshit of the daily grind, and now it is just as bad. At least there is still one place were it has been spared the stupidity of the masses : u****t.
n/t
Sp4t1cu5!
while these women may be a tad bit litigiously minded, (caveat: i actually don't know what was said about them), they ARE Law School students for crying out loud. which tends to suggest that writing new case law rather than actual bruised egos is the order of the day
hey ladies: random pointless negative asocial retards is pretty much par for the course on internet posting boards, especially when done anonymously. if you post with any regularity on the intertubes, you will get trolled, violently and personally. it's a given. it's just hot air from ignorant asocial losers
but do you really want to enable the long arm of the law to go after those who might be posting anonymously for fear of oppressive use of force just because you don't like what some juvenile snarky dickwad said on a discussion board about you?
in other words, for the most part, anonymous posters are utter losers who don't deserve any protection from anyone. but i'd rather put up with their juvenile idiocy than expose the 1% who are posting anonymously for an actual good reason, such as criticism of lawsuit happy scientologists, or for the sake of corporate whistleblowers, or even those who would expose organized crime (want to be frightened by the exposure of whistleblowers wh oshould remain anonymous?: visit http://whosarat.com/... nothing good can come of a site like that, ever)
so just put up with the juvenile dorks, ladies, please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So far, one method tried was to post the summons on the message board itself and ask the defendants to step forward.
Wow.. so did it work?
If not, they gotta try to post the Internet summons in the form of a "IT'S NOT A JOKE. YOU WON. CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE" banner. Maybe throw in a "FREE TRIP!!!" next to it.
That works. Every time.
I can't see how this could move forward unless the identities are revealed. How else are you going to serve a summons to "LawGuy69" and "LegallyBlonde11111one"? The laws regarding serving summons are pretty explicit.
From what the article said, there's a clear case of libel here. The remarks were untrue, malicious and there's considerable damage. It's surprising that people would take an internet forum attack seriously, but lawyers are slow learners. If the people responsible for that little fuck fest are unmasked, they are going to be made to pay. In cases like this, the damage is what counts even if it now looks foolish.
The unmasking should be easy, if StanfordTroll and friends really are law students. I doubt they have a botnet, so they should be easy enough to root out from records the ISPs keep. If they are not really students or are more sophisticated than average, there's a more interesting story here. I would not put it past either political party to engage in these kinds of attacks for political ends.
The rub is not the burning of the trolls but the lack of anonymity for whistle blowers and others actually reporting news that might embarrass the powers that be.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Satire, thy name is Annonymous Coward
Can someone please explain to me why allegedly prestigious law firms would use anonymous and clearly libelous postings as any sort of basis to decide whether to employ someone? Especially when many of the comments appear to be unrelated to legal ability (breast size, sexual orientation etc).
Surely, if these women are indeed excellent graduates, they will have completely non-anonymous references from prestigious law professors saying so. Why would a potential employer need anything else.
Perhaps this problem could best be solved by some sort of automated system which publishes random derogatory comments about all law graduates. Then, these law firms would not be able to employ any new graduates and would eventually go out of business!!
New generation, next chapter. When I was a kid, the flame wars were on CB radio. Being anonymous and untouchable made some pretty tough bullies who were unafraid to stir the pot and hit below the belt. It has simply moved online now. In the old day, a Radio Direction Finder was the great equalizer.
/. permits, AC posts, but they are subject to moderation which helps keep the GNAA and goatse to low levels and personal flamewars almost non-existant.
In the new day, insulting comments have greater than a 15 mile range and are still there days/weeks/months later. It's harder to catch the abuser and the damage is greater. The AC bully is still with us. IP logging helps some.
There is a disconnect from the abuser and the victem. The victem sees just the grafiti on the forum and does not have the advantage of the raw transmission to obtain the source data such as login info and IP address. That is why that abuse info has to be required from the site owner if it was ever logged.
Online humiliation of posting an abusers IP address doesn't have the same impact as announcing a radio abuser's street address. I had more than one online radio bully call my DF bluff and had the misfortune to find out I wasn't bluffing. When that realisation became clear, he tried keying on the top of me. I was very patient and simply re-broadcast when he un-keyed. After 40 minutes, he went silent in defeat.
Unfortunately, the only way to clean up the mess is either moderation, or validation. Un-moderated forum space permitting anonymous posting is a bully's paridise. A flame war can quickly fry the place. It has spilled into the legal system. I don't post on un-moderated boards.
The truth shall set you free!
Before the judge orders logs of the ram to possibly catch the visitors coming back to the scene of the possible crime. POSSIBLY
If they don't keep IP logs, they'll simply have to turn over their RAM.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
All the court has to do is subpoena all the RAM on the server. Surely that will reveal the evil do-ers IP addresses! O.. wait... This sounds familiar...
The justification for privacy is simple: prevention of prejudice. But it is a shield against unfair blows, not a tank where you can launch attacks from protection.
Anonymity has some tradition (Federalist Papers) and protection in the US. But they are honored mostly because they were "fair and reasonable". Many other countries do not protect anonymity because it has frequently been abused.
I dare say these women will get MUCH more negative press from this lawsuit than from a bunch of lame anonymous messages on some no-name message board. Would YOU want to hire a woman so sensitive as to file a defamation lawsuit over some lousy message board posts? Can you imagine what it would be to actually have to WORK around her (talk about walking on eggshells)?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Finally! Here's my chance!
I am Spartacus!
oh, wait...
Nevermind...
everyone is anonymous on the internet. you and i aren't posting as anonymous cowards, but we're still anonymous: all you know of me is my moniker, and a few tid bits of information about who i am that i choose to disclose which may or may not be true
therefore, all that is important is the speech we make. who we "are" is no more, or ess, than the words we say. i kind of like this idea: a complete meritocracy of ideas. attaching my speech or your speech to an "identity" won't make it any more or less responsible. so the line in the sand that you are drawing is a red herring: there is no public toilet posting board versus philosopher's lounge posting board. all posting boards are pretty much a special combination of interstate rest stop and town square tha toyu find on the internet. go ahead and view this thread with the cutoff point of -1 for posts. cheek to jowl with some high level intellignet and witty comments, you will find the most utterly retarded and ignorant asocial negative bullshit
in other words, welcome to the internet. you should try to familiarize yourself a little more with your chosen subject matter. there is no such thing as an identity on the internet. it's all without accountability and recourse. which makes it truly free speech
free speech brings out the good the bad and the ugly in human nature. so rather than some rather naive and idealistic individuals expecting that all human speech somehow become only good on the internet, maybe instead some of you, like these litigious law students, need to develop a higher level of tolerance to simple pointlessly negative and useless juvenile snark. it's not going away, no matter what you do. so just get used to it
using your analogy, when you use a rest stop on the highway, and you see the retarded commentary on the walls, does it devastate you? emotionally damage you? no. you just roll your eyes and forget about it 10 seconds later. so why would the snarky juvenile idiocy damage you on the internet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
something about these women's breast sizes? any company with a manager who would hire/ not hire them because of snakry comments on their sexuality is:
1. a company that the woman doesn't really want to work for. if the hiring manager is that stupid, do you really want to work for a company that puts someone that ignorant in the position of hiring manager?
2. a company you could happily sue if it was because of that reason that they weren't hired. and these women have shown they have no problem suing over little things, no pun intended
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So far, one method tried was to post the summons on the message board itself and ask the defendants to step forward.
Wow! What a GREAT idea -- why didn't anyone think of this before? Just politely ask the bad guys to turn themselves in! Maybe they should try this with Osama! "Osama, dude, listen...we can't find you, so could you please just step forward and show yourself? If it's not too much trouble..."
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Surely if they want the real names they should be willing to give theirs up.
Perhaps a double standard, perhaps I just don't know the relative case law.
Vermifax
Logout
Hey CTC,
You once stated on K5 that you knew eggtroll in real life. Is he still alive? Still trolling?
egg troll? i don't even remember that moniker
i might have said i suspected they were another account on k5. i know no one there in real life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Right. Now, if you should disclose anonymously that you have been giving my prospective bosses fraudulent information that negatively affects me materially...
how does it affect you materially? juvenile snarky commentary about your sexuality affects you materially? are you a prostitute? if i say something negative about your tits on the internet, that's going to affect your job as a lawyer?! how?
now let's say some hypothetical retarded hiring manager is just as juvenile as one of the posters, and it DOES affected your ability to get hired at a firm
what?!
they idiocy of one retard vaildates the idiocy of another?!
i have another idea: MATURITY and an EXPECTATION OF MATURITY. that you would would expect a hiring manager to have the slightest bit of maturity to roll his eyes and ignore snarky comments about your tit size. and if he didn't do that, would you really want to work at a place like that? or, alternately, sue the company who didn't hire you! for not hiring you because some internet retard commented on your tits is much more acitonable than blindly suing essential internet negativity. you have better odds suing the rising and falling of the tides, such is the nature of the enemy you have chosen to fight
no, i have a better idea: grow the fuck up. your fascist every-comment-must-not-be-anonymous attitude reveals an immaturity on your own part: a fragile ego. this is your personality defect, this is your character flaw. and we who are secure enough in ourselves to roll our eyes at retarded juvenile comments on the internet will not give up the concept of anonymity for the sake of your fragile ego. instead, you will grow up. you will change. not us, and not the internet. understand?
it does not serve women's rights to empower juvenile retards on the internet. and you do understand you empower them by reacting to them rather than ignoring them, right? every woman who has ever lived has encountered retarded juvenile comments about them sexually. and 99% of them have hit on the proper response to a male idiot's snark: IGNORE IT. repsonding to it doesn't defeat them, it ENCOURAGES THEM. AND it reveals that you have a serious ego problem of your own
you don't defeat trolls by reacting to them, you defeat trolls by rising above them. you don't defeat losers by sinking to their level. and it is a pretty sad commentary on your own immaturity to be so threatened by such stupid mental pap
you cannot control juvenile retards. ever. you IGNORE them. and you can't expect them not to be anonymous. the slightest bit of technological sophistication and 1% more effort will allow someone to post completely anonymously. there are sites that offer ip obfuscation for free. for the sake of those who live under opporessive governments
and that make sme think of a parallel here: there are governments in this world who are afraid of free speech and a free press. who are afraid that anything negative their citizens might say about them represents a threat. this is not maturity, this is insecurity
and it is exactly the same root instinct, that these oppressive governments have, the same that you have as your insecurity on a personal level: the viewing of that which is not a threat to you as a threat to you, simply because it is a negative and directed at you (and is totally retarded)
these women who sue will make poor lawyers, to view as a threat that which essentially is not a threat to them at all. poor tactical thinking for a lawyer to have
it is a skill EVERYONE in life must possess: the ability to go through your day and brush off mindless negativity directed at you. to react to it is have a social maladaptation, and to encourage the retarded morons who attacked you negatively
grow up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Even if they can't prove that the remarks played a part in their not-being-hired, some of the accusations, like "X has herpes", are pro se libel--meaning that they are so obviously defamatory that the plaintiffs don't have to prove to the court that they caused damage.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
The rub is not the burning of the trolls but the lack of anonymity for whistle blowers and others actually reporting news that might embarrass the powers that be.
So you might as well burn the trolls. Those other bad things are happening and cases like this and worse have already been used as excuses to violate your privacy. The rest of us might as well get something good out of it while we work to restore real privacy on the internet.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The author of the above post has asked me to take the time to point out that he is a poet first, and a would-be assassin second.
THUD~*
You've pretty much given up on pretending, havent you?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
So the basis of this suit is that the girls were damaged by comments made by guys with names like "STANFORDtroll" AND "Ayatollah of rock and rollah"? Is it not more reasonable to believe that their inability to deflect schoolyard comments like doody face and cooty breath may be symptomatic of a more fundamental problem.
The fact is that these girls were applying for competitive positions and while it may be true that people said unpleasant things about them in a public forum, if they were half as talented as they purport to be, they should have been able to overcome the rantings of people named "STANFORDtroll" AND "Ayatollah of rock and rollah"
The fact that they even brought this action anonymously shows how incompetent they are. Just think about it. They brought the suits as Does 1 and 2. They alleged that "specific comments" made by these "specific people" harmed them. Since we know the exact user names and exact comments, then it should be very easy to identify the girls by name by simply reviewing the forums thereby exposing them to the same ridicule that they say ruined their chances to get these competitive positions.
Of course their is always the possibility that this is some gambit where they are trying to get a job by creating a legal controversy that they can be the center of. I mean really, what do they have to lose. They either wind up with jobs they would not have otherwise been considered for or no worse off than they are now and the only thing at risk is our civil rights.
The Internet: the public toilet big enough for us all!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"As long as there are people who believe in thoughtcrime... I think maybe privacy is something we should hang onto for just a bit longer."
... we have you now, Mr. Coward!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
mod points must be scarce.
Ok, Shield. No privacy. So you'd be alright with giving out all your details to everyone, but only if everyone else did too... How would that help anyone? If there was no privacy, there would be nothing done for fear of censure because under scrutiny everything is suspect. There would be virtually no way to make progress as one mistake would leave you permanently marked. There is a reason that the criminal records of juveniles are sealed, just as there is a reason they are unsealed. It is to prevent the unfair characterisation of people who may have done something due to adverse circumstances or youthful high spirits. Sure, with regards to some things, this policy of silence is counterproductive. This is why things like your National Sex Offender Register exist. And the reason for Neighbourhood Watch.
Besides, it's all very well to make ridiculous sweeping generalisations, but another thing entirely to suggest potential for positive change. It's like me saying the problem with society is the inherent tendency of humans to do bad things when they think no one is watching, so we should make everyone watch everyone else all of the time. It's a valid, but completely impractical point.
Big Brother is watching us, that's a fact. Thankfully, Big Brother is busy worrying about the other Big Brothers watching him watching you, and thinking he needs to find a way to get a camera in there, to worry about which of us are molesting children and which of us are voting green. Imagine if this Big Brother really were watching us all the time. You'd feel safe. But you'd also feel violated. Or even if he wasn't watching us per se, he had access to all our grades of every test we've ever done, the results of every anonymous survey we ever filled out. You would be scared, because you would know that whoever was looking at this information was forming an incomplete, flawed, skewed and imperfect picture of you, and making decisions based upon that inaccurate information that could adversely affect your life and leave you in a gutter somewhere as you are now unable to find work due to a note on one of your primary school report cards: "Does not play well with others." The extermination of privacy leads to other things that conflict just as much with essential human behavour (as it exists in our western society.)
I don't know about you, but I went through enough trouble with various examinations throughout my life, including a period of (undiagnosed) mental illness that prevented me from completing my Final Examinations to the best of my ability. There is no way I would want that hanging over my head for the rest of my life. I give myself enough grief about it. I don't need it following me around my entire life, thanks.
Okay, I'm going to finish this rant here, otherwise I'm going to start ranting about the removal of basic human rights to privacy and seclusion (because I don't like crowds) and the pointlessness of making judgements based on third- or fourth-hand knowledge (because I've made mistakes), and before you know it, I've used the phrase 'Orwellian nightmare' thus forfeiting my right to any sort of credibility or respect, as well as losing the argument by default. Suffice to say that the only way to live in a world without privacy would be to make sure that you never did anything that could go on your permanent record.
I'm not so polite that I'd be able to do that. And I doubt you are either.
THUD~*
Have a nice day, you illiterate shit.
...and thereby, revealing they know a LOT about you
;-)
that comment doesn't bother me at all. because i am mature. you can attack me all you want. because my ego doesn't depend upon the negativity one finds easily on the internet. your ego seems to though. and amazingly, what you wrote about me being an illiterate shit is preceded by:
I was unaware that mischaracterizing another's attitude, swearing at them, and giving a dime-store psychoanalysis of their personality based on a Slashdot comment were hallmarks of "MATURITY" and being "secure."
so in your comment above you have nicely encapsulated your entire problem: rather than rise above what you have perceived in my comment as something puerile and disgusting, you have immediately descended to my level by calling me an illiterate shit
which is your problem, and these lawyer's problems, all in a nutshell: you don't rise above stupid internet negativity, you sink right down into it. due to a fragile ego. you feel compelled to respond to something negative posted on the internet about you, by someone who doesn't know the slightest thing about you
if i throw a negative comment in your direction, and you laugh, or don't respond, i have failed in getting a rise out of you because i haven't attacked you, because i don't know anything about you
if however, i attack you and i get a negative reaction, then i have hit a nerve, i have in fact attacked a part of you. because you feel the need to respond and defend yourself. so therefore whatever it is i have said about you must have a grain of truth after all, because it apparently hit you a little too close
yes, this is dime-store psychoanlysis, just as you say. except that dime store psychoanalysis is often times right, especially when dealing with simple aspects of psychology
our solution is to ignore stupid useless negativity
your solution? to get rid of anonymity (as if that were possible)
you have a fragile ego. you have a dime store psychology
now: you can choose not to respond to that personal attack. thus proving that you have a shred of maturity after all, that i didn't really attack you
or, respond, and prove i am right about you
for your sake, i hope you don't respond, and i will rest comfortable that i have taught you a simple lesson about trolling and the psychology of the ego on the internet, as dime-store and simple as it is, you still apparently need to learn it
because your current attitude towards anonymity on the internet is harmful to you, and harmful to the health of the internet
so shut up, and put up with the toilet wall comments, or prove your ego is small and simple, and that you are as immature as the clap trap that gets you so upset, simply by getting you so upset in the first place!
you lose
good day sir
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Has anyone brought up the whole Minority Report thing?
To what extent do we want to restrict privacy to the detriment of so called human rights? Who here is in favour of the patriot act?
Well, this lawsuit could have some serious precedent-setting potential. This could well remove the very anonymity that makes the internet so attractive to trolls, flamers, poets, artists, bloggers and all those other people who feel that they are safe out there because the everyday overly litigious yuppie can't figure out who they are.
THUD~*
With a forum name like Xoxohth, I'm not sure you want to know who the anonymous posters are. There are some things that Man Was Not Meant To Know.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
That seems a particularly haphazard means of going about things. Surely a loophole like that would be ridiculously easy to subvert, to facilitate skulduggery and other sorts of untoward goings on?
THUD~*
I like to point out to the members of my forums, so they know why myself or staff tends to take a more active roll in moderating or just cooling things down...it leads to a better community for all...these kind of stories just piss me off...everybody is a toughguy behind a friggin keyboard.
dB Masters
and support my notion
#1: future potential employers who use juvenile commentary on someone's sexuality in a hiring decision are just as retarded and juvenile as the comments themselves, and therefore:
a. aren't worth working for.
b. actionable in a court of law WAY more than the juvenile commentary is.
#2: if you took a future employer out to that hypothetical truck stop and he/she saw that commentary, then what do you imagine happening? "oh, thanks, we can't hire this person. some retard scrawled something retarded on the restroom wall about their tits. obviously, this means they would make a bad lawyer"
obviously, that's stupid. so why is a G.I.S. that reveals the same puerile commentary any more respectable. "i saw it on the teh intarweb, so it must be respectable and true"
wtf?!
i have a superior notion: how about MATURITY in reaction to retarded juvenile posts on the internet, and an EXPECTATION OF MATURITY from anyone else viewing same juvenile posts
what's the alternative? a fascist state where no comments can be anonymous? respecting people with fragile egos who break down and cry everytime someone ANONYMOUSLY comments negatively on them? please!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What you're getting at is the distinction between anonymity, in which you have no identity, and pseudonymity, in which you have a persistent identity that need not be traceable to your everyday identity, but which still allows you to build up a reputation and be recognized as an individual by others.
Well, if you're dumb enough to accept the claims of complete anonymity at face value, you deserve whatever comes your way.
Same way that if you shout something insulting out in a crowded place, you got to be ready for someone to chase you and beat you with a shoe.
THUD~*
call me a fucking illiterate moronic piece of shit retard
doesn't bother me. really
but suggest to me there should be no such thing as anonymous posting on the internet?: that bothers the hell out of me. it's oppressive, and controlling, and it was what i was babbling on about. i wasn't mindlessly attacking the poster, i was MINDFULLY attacking the IDEA
understand?
furthermore, you are attacking me about my past behavior. huh? WHATEVER my past behavior, good or bad, because i was wrong in the past means i can't be right about this topic? i do plenty of wrong things in this world, and i am plenty guilty of plenty crimes. i am not perfect. sunlight does not shine out of asshole
therefore, i can never be right about anything? what exactly is your point about me? because all i am thinking is it's NOT ABOUT ME
all i know is, in this thread, on this topic, my argument is correct, regardless of whatever grave and horrible sins you find me guilty of in the past
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Walking on eggshells? WTF? I wouldn't be afraid to work with any of these women.
Try this: If you find yourself in the position of working for a company which has just hired these women, here are the steps you can take to avoid a lawsuit:
1) Forget to start a thread on the internal company bulletin boards entitled "Stupid Bitch to join MegaDominationCorp."
There is no step two.
All these women have demonstrated is that there is a certain, very high threshold of career-ruining slander that they're not willing to take from racist, misogynist, juvenile fratboys. If these women have shown that they present a clear and present danger to your current corporate culture, then the sexual harassment suits are inevitable anyways.
More likely, your corporate culture isn't particularly bad, and you're simply choosing to see these women as litigation-happy harpies, rather than women with a legitimate grievance. I prefer to see them as the latter. If it weren't for the fact that they didn't know who to name in the suit, there would be nothing controversial about the lawsuit at all.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Doesn't matter what you prefer to see them as, it only matters what they ARE. Defamation lawsuits are rare; and they usually indicate a touchy, hypersensitive, or even mentally unstable plaintiff. If that's the kind of person you want to work with--knowing that they're sensitive and not at all shy about filing a lawsuit for a perceived slight--you go right ahead.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So, I like to believe there's some kind of cosmic balance regarding the justice of things. What would be really cool here, is if someone would collect all the pseudonyms of the jack-asses posting things like pictures, rape threats, etc. and so on, *and* collect all of their comments to basically make a 'my space' profile of those pseudonyms. A clearing house of that users particular online personality.
/retch/). But the thing is, when someone tells you to leave them the hell alone, and you don't, and then someone fsck's with you and you tell them to leave you alone, and they don't... that, my friends, is cosmic justice. Oh - and funny.
Then figure out who that pseudonym belongs to. Offer a reward of 10 paypal bucks, an i-five, you know - stupid schwagg that should be more than enough to out the guy by his acquaintances, who undoubtedly also think he's an asshole. Confirm it of course, as best as you're able - maybe get a few pics of the guy along with his schedule, a pic of him taking a pic of one of his targets would be funny as hell, and then come back to Slashdot with the results. A "Hall of assholes who post on AutoAdmit".
Guaranteed those dicks will have a hard time getting a job (or staying in law school if some of those comments are to be believed). And it's not really actionable since all you did was tie his anonymous pseudonym to his real name (again, you'd need a really solid source for who he is), and by God, you didn't promise him any such anonymity.
Now I know, we'd all be in trouble if someone did this to us (for example, my own essays on the transcendent joy of seeing goatse...
So let me see if I get this right. This woman (or women) had no job offers and few callbacks, even though they were at the top of their Harvard class...
From the doubly-deferenced original article:
> The chats sometimes include photos taken from women's Facebook pages,
> and in the Yale student's case, one person threatened to sexually violate her.
Presumably the employer read that someone wanted to rape and beat her up, so they refused to hire her.
> Another participant claimed to be the student, making it appear that
> she was taking part in the discussion.
"And, besides, here she is claiming she likes sex with dogs and mules and her tongue 'enters her mother's forbidden folds' on a regular basis. I won't hire her because of that, either."
WTF idiots are running these corporate HR departments?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
have never seen the bumper sticker. Of course, lamer parents have lamer children.
Do they go on walk-abouts or are they too busy munching on kimchi?
The casual spectator to this kind of thing, and even someone with a bit of education in law for that matter, would tend to believe there is some legal recourse in this type of situation. However, take it from me, someone who worked for MS for a long time and saw dozens of employees seriously slandered on the way out, there is little practical recourse. From foreign-born employees being described as disloyal Americans for baseless reasons to women having the integrity of their personal lives into question to baseless claims of prejudice to alleged drug usage, this kind of slander is a tool used by some companies to mitigate the risk of communications channels between the departing and remaining employees staying open. Also, in a case like Microsoft, it is generally true that the employees who make it in are technically qualified, so there is often a business reason to diminish an employee's perceived identity throug defamation. Dozens of former colleagues of mine have sought legal remedy for the aforementioned acts, with nothing but "well if you don't have some people who will testify that they based a decision on disinformation by this software giant, there is little that can be done". If Wen Ho Lee (a Chinese American who was publicly accused of being a spy before being exonerated) can only recover one million dollars for an accusation that damning, how can anyone believe they are proptected by the legal system? These people are unlikely to collect anything.
--Doug Hettinger
we're not at that level, are we?
i think if someone walked down the street and yelled "jackass" at you the most prudent course of action is to ignore them
and i think that if someone hit you on the head just walking down the street, ignoring them would be pretty stupid
in other words, the issue is more complex than "ignore always" or "respond always"
you have to gauge the severity of the attack. if the attack approached the level of your analogy, perhaps a response is appropriate. but for the severity of everything we've been talking about in the story, i say ignore
got me?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
are you trying to say snarky comments abnout someone's sexuality in a message board influences hiring decisions?
and let's suspend disbelief and for the sake of argument say that might be true in some situations... that is an acceptable status quo in your mind?
sounds like legal action to me! you know that that has happened? you seem to be familiar with hiring decisions. i suggest that if you know of any stupid puerile gossip influencing a hiring decision, that you contact the rejected applicant and advise them of their right to sue for such pap. it's your social responsibility to be such a whistleblower on such irresponsible decision making. you could even do it ANONYMOUSLY. imaigne that concept in the context of this discussion! (snicker)
furthermore, i'm certain that retarded frat boys abound everywhere. doesn't mean we should accept any retarded thinking on their part in terms of hiring decisions, however hypothetical or real their influence. but i'm a crazy guy: i would suspect that even retarded frat boys have the slightest bit of maturity and are able to think, and do think that retarded snarky comments on a message board about someone's sexuality has no bearing on a hiring decision
does that sound crazy to you? or should we go with your acceptance of snarky message board comments deciding someone's worth in the work place?
please! get fucking real!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
has had to deal with snarky male retards
and 99% of them learn to deal with snarky male retards the only effective way possible: IGNORE THEM
if you FEED THE TROLL, you only ENCOURAGE the snarky male retards to act even more retarded
snarky male retarded commentary on female sexuality is a social phenomenon that has no real power, unless you GIVE them power by giving them a face and a name on the end of their retarded comments. all young males are sexually frustrated, and the majority of them can deal with it. a minority cannot, and must lash out at women in general, and certain targets in particular. this doesn't make it right! but there it is anyways, it exists, it is real, and it must be coped with by women. the best strategy for which is, ignoring it. i am not excusing or condoning such male retarded sexual frustration, but i AM saying the best way to deal with it is to IGNORE it. reacting to it gives it more life
in real life, any such lashing out is indeed actionable, but anonymously on the internet, it is what it is: pointless, stupid, retarded, and without any consequences, unless you GIVE them a target to continue obsessing about by putting a name and a face on their frustrations
ignore them, and they will learn to deal with their frustrations another way. if it escalates into a real life threat, then indeed, it is actionable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't think of myself as touchy, hypersensitive, or mentally unstable, and I'd talk to a lawyer if someone was posting my picture on message boards along with accusations about having sex with my dog and my mother.
Law firms are especially sensitive in hiring with respect to 'public scandal'; any negative publicity hurts. A Yale law student in good standing couldn't get a 2L internship? I wonder why.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
continue to wage your war on retarded male sexual frustration
clearly so superior a tactic to just ignoring it
i think you're just attacking the messenger. you don't like to hear what i have to say, but what i have to say has a better grasp on reality than you have
so be it. i guess uptight people with fragile egos and snarky sexually frustrated retards deserve each other. must be some sort of circle of hell
sorry for trying to educate you out of that particular hell. but ignore me! carry on with the war on mindless negativity! you're winning it for sure!
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if it escalates to real world specific threats, it's a different beast. are you making an analogy or in the case before us these pictures and stalking behavior really happened?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I am dedazo.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I ran through all the links, and found Jill Filipovic's Flickr site (it's easy, just paste it into search). After wasting about 15 minutes of my life, possible flaggin the corporate wirewall for "questionable search strings", and being reacquainted with how stupid people can get....I'm sorta on the fence on this one.
:) (sorry if THAT offends....) Back on topic: I hire people, and I'd give NO consideration to the rantings of a message board. This is why I found it offensive the MessageBoard admin guy didn't get a job because of his simple affiliation with the message board. That's just plain stupid. CowboyNeal isn't responsible for MY comments, whether I'm a freakin genuis or a certifiable retard.
After reading Jill's own words, seeing what she was exposed to, I understand her frustration. I can't empathize because I'm not female and subjected to constant oogling, but I can sympathize if she feels wronged. Obviously she does because she is suing. Obviously, as a law student, she realizes the consequences and did more than just spout, "IAMNAL, but blah blah blah" like most people would. If she felt scorned, she knows the suit will increse the actions of the unjust. Hence the really vile emails and comments she is now getting. I don't care how bad a person is or isn't, no one deserves to be called "a diseased AIDS infected cum bucket..."
On the other hand, these are just idiots posting on a message board similar to ours. I wish all boards had our moderation (and meta-moderate). Would it stop it? Nah, but I can decide on days with little time to read the meat (read 2+), or on days with not much to do see the "nice rack" comments (reading -1) which of course would make me pull up the pics since I'm def interested in any pics described in that manner
So where does that leave us? A meager attempt by the law to do what's possibly moral in the eyes of a few. We know they got it dead wrong with DMCA, but right with attempted murder. Yes, I picked extremes, but you can see my point. Morally, is it wrong and they should be sued for calling her what they did? I guess if you had to nail me to the wall one way or the other, I'd say I agree with Jill. Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable agreeing with anyone who associates with variations of the word "feminist" but she might also be using it in a different construct/context. The reason I am comfortable is that free speech has responsible constraints. If you disagree, post a very public attack on $cientology with personal info about yourself, and then tell me in 6 months how you feel. I have a feeling you'll think Jill might have a point.
Although I disagree with him, he seems to be one of the few people expousing a "If we were to confess our sins to each other, we would laugh at our unoriginality" philosophy in these posts.
It certainly is interesting, and many things that people feel embarassed by is only because other people's privacy makes the normal seem abnormal. And I agree that if we learn to respect minority opinions, this may make sense to me as a philosophy. But I think in any sense for this "privacy -> problems" idea to work, a positive obligation for people to reveal (possibly what they don't even know themselves) must exist.
If everyone who was racist stood up and said so, there may be societal benefits. But I'm willing to bet many racist people don't event know that they are. etc...
Your ad here. Ask me how!
When you're getting sued, the plaintiff's lawyer can send you instructions to preserve all existing and future material with possible evidentiary value in the proceedings. Failure to do so after receiving those instructions is horrendously bad from a legal perspective.
So if a website is purposefully not logging IPs to avoid identifying anonymous posters, and they receive such a notice, does failure to start logging IPs count as failing to preserve material with possible evidentiary value?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
First of all, I just want to point out that these girls are applying to be LAWYERS. One of the qualities of a good lawyer would be to have the verbal and reasoning skills to fend off any blind accusations that you were a slut or had herpes or cooties or what ever. At the very least you should be able to point out that the person making the accusations is a coward with an axe to grind.
If they don't have at least the gumption to overcome petty accusations of being a Mrs. Poopypants, then they really aren't qualified to be an attorney no matter how pretty their padded little resumes are now are they?
We have to somehow manage to get away from the belief that we have a right to not have our feelings hurt. We are so overwhelmed by our compassion for the down trodden, that we make no distinction between the oppressed and the petty.
Stalking and threats of rape and murder aren't equivalent to "Mrs Poopypants," sorry to say.
I find it weird that you think filing suit to protect her good name makes someone less competent as a lawyer. Or are you really just condemning the plaintiffs for Studying Law While Female and decrying the damage they could do to those good, wholesome male law students?
How were these women supposed to refute these stupidities to the potential employers who may or may not be aware of them? Am I expected to disclose all my Internet dust-ups to any potential employers, and offer compelling evidence that I was entirely in the right?
Or are they required to refute each and every accusation by potentially dozens of immature trolls, on a forum where they might have their accounts revoked at any time if the women behave as they like?
If they do nothing, these stupid forums will follow them for the rest of their careers. If they stand up for themselves inside the forum, they'll be drowned in a sea of trolling. Step back from all this condescending talk about "pretty little resumes", and recognize that the pubescent children on that forum were publishing lies about people that had the potential to materially harm their reputations. Libel laws are for exactly this sort of thing. The Internettiness of the communication doesn't affect that in any way. All it does is conceal the identity of the person that needs suing.
If I were to go around distributing flyers in your neighborhood and your employer, accusing you of all sorts of heinous things, no reasonable person would expect you to limit your response to either silence or printing your own leaflets. You'd be right to get a lawyer or three involved. I can't for the life of me why you wouldn't respect the womens' right to do the same, unless you honestly think that it's our manly right to say the sorts of things that were said about these women. Obviously, many of the guys on the forum think so.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
...is on the top of my things to do list.
I like kimchi. It's spicy and tasty and easy to make.
It's nice to know that some people can put some thought into their trolling. That's much better than the usual "urmomisgai" efforts. Keep it up, and you might even get some negative mods on your posts.
Although you might be being too subtle...
THUD~*
Well, you know what they say. Boys will be boys and all, har har.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
uh... everyone on the internet is a moron? Myself included, of course. Australians are all uneducated inbreds? Americans are all filthy filthy captitalist scum? Koreans are good at Dance Dance Revolution?
Wow, this is fun! C'mon, everyone make sweeping generalisations! It's easy!
THUD~*
"pro se" means to represent yourself in court ... I don't understand what pro-se libel is, can you illucidate?
...
In any case "they are so obviously defamatory that the plaintiffs don't have to prove to the court that they caused damage" doesn't seem particularly compelling in these modern times.
People sleep around and are happy to admit it. So getting herpes is no longer such a stigmatised position to be in. Moreover, having herpes is a simple matter of fact that should be readily discerned by medical testing. Libel AFAIK requires that you defame someone by false accusation (doesn't it?!)
No I didn't RT-Flippin'-A.
Jay: All these assholes on the internet are calling us names because of this stupid fucking movie.
Banky: That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously. Stopping the flick isn't gonna stop that.
Ok, you can't have it both ways. Either these forums are critical to the professional development of these girls, or they are populated but pubescent trolls who are proffering lies. If the forums are critical, then the girls need to take the opportunity to call out the cowards who proffer them. If the forums are simply populated by trolls then everyone of consequence knows it.
As far as your flyer analogy goes, if you and I had a dispute I would pray that you sent anonymous flyers out. If I had a nickel for every time someone has tried that tactic with me only to have it blowup in their face. All that you have to do is come out confident and dismissive and you win. If you are ever questioned about the accusation, you ask where they came up with something that silly. Then the have to tell you that they heard it from the Ayatolla of Rock and Rolla.
I guess you are right. If I were weak and incompetent I probably would file a law suit in a case like that. But since I am not, I just refuse to give them the power to make me feel bad about myself. Maybe you should consider doing the same or you may never leave academia.
Dear Kilgore (if that is your real name, which I know it isn't you lying fuck),
What the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking fuck?
What does your diatribe against Rudy Guiliani have to do with libel suits, you stupid shit?
Proper service is, as a practical matter, whatever the judge says it is. In-person delivery is of course the gold standard of proper service, but in many cases, in-person delivery is not possible.
;)
Perhaps the identity or location of the entity to be served is unknown. For instance, let's say a residential renter abandons his rental unit owing me money (I am a landlord). When I sue him, I generally won't know his location (he abandoned, after all), so I merely have to send notice via certified mail to his last known address (his abandoned unit), and he is served. Of course, in that case, he will never receive his notice, and when the trial proceeds, he will lose the case by default since he won't be there to enter a defense.
Should he choose, he can at a later date petition for a new trial on the grounds of never receiving service. He would probably get a new trial, assuming I can't demonstrate that the defendant was actively trying to avoid service. This wouldn't get him out of the woods, it would merely give him a chance to enter a defense.
In other situations, say when not only is the identity of an interested party to a legal action unknown, but it is also unknown whether or not such an interested party even exists. In cases like that (you'll see it all the time in probate and real estate title cases), notice is delivered by, I kid you not, placing an ad in the local legal newspaper. You do read your local legal newspaper, don't you?
Anyhow, that brings us back to service by posting a message on an Internet forum. If the judge approves, you're good to go. Realizing that, of course, your defendants might eventually challenge your service by claiming to have not seen the posting. Hopefully the law students who own those handles had the good sense not to reply to the posted notice!
That ever happening, of course, is extremely unlikely, assuming that the true identities of the defendants are never discovered. What will probably happen in this case is that a default judgment will be entered against the forum handles, the real identities of the posters will never be discovered, and this whole thing will be an exercise in time wasting.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
While I don't disagree with your primary premise that most national-level politicians are ethically challenged, I think this is partly due to the political process that selects for the ethically challenged. At the local level, you will find quite a few ethical politicians. Yes, there are also unethical politicians at the local level, but I believe that national politics tends to favor the unethical, crafty politician. (Not all unethical politicians are crafty, of course.)
Now, here's something to consider: at the national level, a lot of successful "independents" come from the D or R parties. Joe Lieberman's case is instructive. He ran as an independent, against both a Democratic and Republican candidate and won handily. Although I support voting reform that would make it easier for a third party candidate to get elected, I think one reason that third party candidates don't get elected is that most Americans actually like the way that D/R politicians act. Lieberman was the ultimate hybrid (to the degree that he deviated from the D platform, he acted more like an R), and look at his results.
On one hand, I think perhaps you have too much faith in the American public. On the other hand, perhaps I'm generalizing too much from individual cases.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?