First Amendment Ruling Protects Internet Trolls

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A recent ruling by the Court of Appeal of the State of California (PDF) in Krinsky v. Doe H030767 overturned a lower court ruling and decided that the First Amendment right to anonymous speech protects internet trolls, too. Specifically, the ruling said that 'this juvenile name-calling cannot reasonably be read as stating actual facts.' And, even though some of the statements were crudely sexual and accused Ms. Krinsky of being among 'boobs, liars and crooks,' the statements were held to 'fall into the category of crude, satirical hyperbole which, while reflecting the immaturity of the speaker, constitute protected opinion under the First Amendment.'"

Comments

Oh dear God...

[palegray.net]

We now have a Slashdot article on trolling? Holy crap, this is gonna be bad, really bad. Does this mean all trolls are now on-topic?

Re:Oh dear God...

[slyn]

I was expecting 500 Anonymous Coward posts saying something along the lines of "yea thats right you UID bitches, go fuck yourselves."

It must be past his bedtime or something.

Re:Oh dear God...

[edwardpickman]

Trolls are often on topic but are expressing unpopular opinions. I wish the mod was used strictly for those being obnoxious and not contributing to the discussion. "Troll" and "Flamebait" are at times used to shout down people with unpopular stances. Make a few posts supporting copyrights or speaking out against illegal downloading and see how fast you get trolled or flamebaited. People do at times get decent mods for making good arguments but the vast majority of times they'll be modded down.

Re:Oh dear God...

[antifoidulus]

"Troll" and "Flamebait" are at times used to shout down people with unpopular stances.

Not nearly to the extent that "overrated" is used though. Overrated is used to shout down people with unpopular stances by moderators who don't want negative meta-mods(since over/under rated is not meta-modded)

Re:Oh dear God...

[dintech]

Very insightful comment but yet with an unpopular view point. Hmmm. If I had mod points, I'd mod you down.

Re:Oh dear God...

[tacocat]

Score one for the good guys. You may not like Trolls, but then neither did King George. If protecting my freedom of speech means I get to listen to a few immature Trolls, it's well worth the price.

Re:Oh dear God...

[LordLucless]

It's also because there are no downmods labeled "factually incorrect", "moronic argument that's been debunked a million times already" or "calling people names isn't going to make your argument any more compelling". When someone's being a dick, and you can't be bothered throwing pearls before swine, there aren't too many options for accurate mods.

Re:Oh dear God...

[greylingrover]

Yeah, just look at my account... I've tried to make a couple admittedly feeble attempts at humor with good intent (there is a funny mod option, is there not?), only to be modded down (soul crushing as it was). So I just don't post, even when I have something useful to offer. I'm guessing I'll get hammered on this one also, and no, that's not bait, I'm just trying to point out this inherent flaw in community policing/rating/censorship?. Oh yeah, and free speech is good - see, that was totally on topic! ;)

Re:Oh dear God...

[Anonymous Coward]

>Makes me wonder what a '+1 whinny' would do to ones soul?

Give it a sudden craving for oats?

Re:Oh dear God...

[bhtooefr]

Speaking of over/underrated, I tend to use underrated in place of funny, because funny doesn't give the poster any karma. (A single funny mod actually reduces the maximum karma a person can receive for a post, making it in some ways WORSE than a negative mod - at least if a post gets down-modded, it can get modded back up, reversing the karma loss.)

Sometimes I'll find that the post has an insightful, interesting, or informative component, and will use that mod (which at least allows it to be metamodded, and follow the system,) but sometimes funny is the only appropriate mod... so I go underrated.

democracy and noise

[LosManos]

That is one of the down sides of democracy. The signal to noise ration is sometimes bad.
But what you consider BS one time might be the truth the next. It is up to you.

This is fantastic news.

[gnick]

I for one welcome all things troll friendly. The only thing keeping me from rejoicing completely is that this may interfere with internet censorship... Can we protect trolling, but still censor profanity and anything that may offend religious groups? Then I'll be happy and America will be safer. Those who oppose trolls but allow offensive religious speech hate America's freedom.

Greatest Hits

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all / The morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all / And even if I could it'll all be gray but your picture on my wall / It reminds me, that it's not so bad -- it's not so bad

Dear Rob, I wrote but you still ain't callin / I left my email, my ICQ, and my yahoo chat at the bottom / I sent two emails back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em / There probably was a problem with your sendmail or somethin / Sometimes I scribble email addees too sloppy when I jot 'em / but anyways; fsck it, what's been up? Man how's your boxes? / My boxes is linux too, I'm bout to be a compiler / once I learn gcc, / I'ma go on and compile for hours / I read about your Palm Pilot too I'm sorry / I had a friend lose his Palm over at the airport in Maradonna / I know you probably hear this everyday, but I'm your biggest fan / I even read all your bullshit Linux news and Microsoft's man / I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man / I like the way you sold your ass out too, that shit was fat / Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back, / just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan / This is Stan

Dear Rob, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance / I ain't mad - I just think it's FSCKED UP you don't answer fans / If you didn't wanna talk to me outside your Linux World / you didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Matthew / That's my Senior sys admin he's only 26 years old / We waited on a 9600 baud for you, / four hours and you just said, "No." / That's pretty shitty man - you're like his fsckin idol / He wants to be just like you man, he likes you more than I do / I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein lied to / Remember when we met in Boston - you said if I'd write you / you would write back - see I'm just like you in a way / I never had a clue about shit either / I gcc'd shit with my wife then beat her / I can relate to what you're saying in your page / so when I feel like rmusering I read Slashdot to begin the rage / cause I don't really got shit else so that shit helps when I'm depressed / I even got a tattoo of slashdot across the chest / Sometimes I even packet myself to see how much it floods / It's like adrenaline, the DDoS is such a sudden rush of blood / See everything you say is real, and I respect you cause you tell it / My girlfriend's jealous cause I talk about you 24/7 / But she don't know you like I know you Rob, no one does / She don't know what it was like for people like us growin up / You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose / Sincerely yours, Stan -- P.S. / We should be together too

Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Waste-A-Packet-On-My-Fans, / this'll be the last packet I ever send your ass / It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it? / I know you got my last two emails / I wrote the @ signs on 'em perfect / So this is my payload I'm sending you, I hope you hear it / I'm on my modem now, I'm doing 9600 baud so fear it / Hey Rob, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to code? / You know the song by Deep Purple or Slayer / its irrelevant by playing on my linux player / while I write some php scripts and play some Dragonslayer / That's kinda how shit is, you coulda rescued me from drowning / Now it's too late - I'm on a 1000 downloads now, I'm drowsy / and all I wanted was a lousy letter or a call / I hope you know I ripped +ALL+ of your pictures off the wall / I love you Rob, we coulda been together, think about it / You ruined it now, I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it / And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you SCREAM about it / I hope your conscience EATS AT YOU and you can't BREATHE without me / See Rob {*screaming*} Shut up bitch! I'm tryin to code / Hey Rob, that's my senior admin screamin from the comode / but I didn't cut the power off, I just rebooted, see I ain't like you / cause if rm -rf'd we'd suffer more, and then the boxes die too / Well, gotta go, I'm almost BGP bridged now / Oh shit, I f

Re:Greatest Hits

[Anonymous Coward]

The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:

• More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post slashdot.org. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
• Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)
• Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.
• A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever, funny, etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel, they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread to see what I mean.
• Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll, which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.

Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.

Anonymous cowards are... well, cowards.

How long does it take?

[Phat_Tony]

Oh come on, why are there 18 comments and no one's done this yet? Do I have to do everything myself? Let's get it out of the way:

_____________________________

That idiotic dumb-ass judge wouldn't know a good judicial decision if it bit him in his lame-ass ass. Where did he go to judge-school anyway, The Universduhity of Dumbasia?

I see it came from California. Everyone knows everybody in California is a stupid liberal anyway with their stupid activist liberal judges who just do whatever their retarded Governator tells them to do. Retards. Someone should shoot them all, wouldn't that be ironic? Here they all go crying "free speech, free speech," and then they get shot? Well, if you don't see the irony, then you're even dumber than that retarted freakin judge.

_____________________________

OK, now mod it + funny, - troll and we can be done with it.

Trolly Comment

[AndGodSed]

bla, yah, abortion, yadda, mohammed cartoon, yack yack, George Bush, bla bla...

Hurrah for the courts

[LandruBek]

This is good news in an age where free speech is under attack from so many quarters. Let's all remember this famous quote:

"I may mod down what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."
-- Voltaire

This has not always been the land of the free. Remember Eugene V. Debs:

"June 16, 1918 -- Debs made his famous anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I which was raging in Europe. For this speech he was arrested and convicted in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio under the war-time espionage law ... [and] sentenced to serve 10 years in prison . . . ."
(from here)

... and the victims of the Montana sedition law.

Re:Words=Noise, Writing=Squiggles

[cliveholloway]

"...trying to get a t-shirt made that simply says F*** Jesus, has been very hard"

So you want to get a T-shirt made with Fuck Jesus on it, but you're too embarrassed to type that almost anonymously on Slashdot?

Um, OK then. Go for it you rebel!

Re:how would it not be?

[Logic and Reason]

I sincerely doubt that the people who wrote your constitution had the noble aim of allowing their citizens to call each other "poopyheads" in mind.

No, I think that's exactly what they had in mind. Something along the lines of, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

If the founders had wanted to protect the right to specifically annoy other people, they would have written something like: "The right of citizens to throw balloons full of dog shit at each other shall not be infringed".

This is exactly why some of the founders opposed the creation of the Bill of Rights: they worried that people would misinterpret it as an exhaustive listing of the people's (and the states') rights. It is not. It merely lists some of the things the federal government is explicitly, no-really-I-mean-it not allowed to do; but everything not mentioned is supposed to be left up to the people, or to the states. In fact, there's even an amendment saying precisely that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

So since the founders did not put any language into the Constitution granting the federal government the power to prevent people from generally being assholes to each other, the federal government isn't allowed to do it. I leave as an exercise for the reader the task of finding in the Constitution language that grants the federal government the power to establish Social Security and other forms of welfare, the Federal Reserve, the Food and Drug Administration, and so on.

Very interesting: professionalism = responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the summary and the verdict, it actually appears that the main question was whether the statements could reasonably be read as facts, because defamation rules only protect against false factual claims. The judge found that no reasonable person was likely to read them as statements of facts, but rather as 'crude, satirical hyperbole'.

The very strong implication that is likely to have consequences is that the deciding question about any claims is whether they are "likely to be read as facts", which again is going to depend on the professionalism they are delivered with. Whereas posting the commment "Ms. Krinsky likes to suck goats" in a Youtube comment is unlikely to be defamatory, creating a professional-looking blog and writing a post entitled "My disturbing meeting with Ms. Krinsky where she hinted at zoophilia" on the other hand is likely to be.

I completely agree that this is the only sensible and real-life-compatible way for things to be done to be honest, but it is interesting that the court has now spelt it out explicitly. Look forward to the 'convincingness' of internet posts to become an issue in defemation cases in the future. Of course, even if something is not defamatory it could still be harassment or criminal in other ways.

Darwinian M&M duels

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.

Re:Darwinian M&M duels

[montyzooooma]

There's a flaw here. With a winner stays on format the winner gets worn down over time making it statistically unlikely that the last man standing will actually be the strongest competitor when the contest started, just the strongest left when the contest finished.

Re:Darwinian M&M duels

[clickety6]

There's another flaw. He's only using M+M candies which is useless for breeding purposes. He needs to find a packet of M+F candies.

Re:USENET had it right...

[somersault]

+----------+
|  PLEASE  |
|  DO NOT  |
| FEED THE |
|  TROLLS  |
+----------+
    |  |
    |  |
  .\|.||/..

Teehee

Re: Vs. King George

[TaoPhoenix]

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person to separate himself from the association of the other members of a learned discussion, and to assume among the trolls of the earth a separate and equal station, it becomes incumbent upon the troll to enumerate the reasons for his separation.

Re:No

[gomiam]

No, that's preventing everyone else from seeing their opinions too.

<sarcasm>Of course it is, because there is no option to browse at -1, whether you are a registered user or not. I guess two clicks are too much work, and having to go to a public library to read a book censors the author because you don't get it sent home just because you think you want to read it right now.</sarcasm>

Preventing would require that those comments were unavailable (or with great difficulty). Two clicks doesn't cut it, for me.