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UK Facebook User's Name Appropriation Draws Huge Libel Suit
Slatterz links to a story which shows that nowadays, it's sometimes possible to find out whether someone is a dog on the Internet, excerpting: "A freelance photographer is facing a £22,000 bill after setting up a fake Facebook page that libelled a former classmate. Grant Raphael, a freelance photographer, set up a Facebook page in the name of former school friend Mathew Firsht and posted false information about his sexual and political preferences. He also set up another page for Firsht's television company, the latter entitled 'Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?' ... 'The significance of this case is that it shows that what you post is not harmless, but has consequences,' media lawyer, Jo Sanders, of Harbottle & Lewis, told the BBC."
Libel is libel, even on the Internet.
Fnord.
...tends to be taken rather more seriously than in the US. There is no automatic right to free speech (except on Speaker's Corner, where even the slander laws can't touch you) and the penalties aren't gentle - the satirical magazine Private Eye found that one out. However, the standards of proof are high and a false accuser can expect rough treatment too from both the courts and the press. That is why frivolous lawsuits and abuses of the legal system are rarer in England. In this case, however, if the alleged victim was indeed a victim of libel, the damage will be hard to undo. What is on the Internet is there forever and falsehoods will continue to circulate in all perpetuity. This is not the trivial stuff of a local gossip causing problems in a local village, where you can simply move. You cannot (yet) move off-planet.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"I think it's a good thing that a 14-year-old girl can pose as a 50-year-old man and see if her ideas will be taken seriously on their own merits.
No.
I think it's a good thing that a 14-year-old girl can pose her ideas and will be taken seriously on their own merits.
Yes.
If she's posing as a 50 year old man, then whatever she is saying isn't being taken on its own merits but under the assumption that she may be more qualified simply because she appears to be older and/or male.
I'll take her absolutely seriously. It's a lot more important to listen to teenagers than 50 yo rambling farts. Teenagers are still discovering the world, can still be encouraged down the right path, and will impact the world a lot longer. Spending time listening to them, their fears, their ideas, their dreams, tells a lot more about the world we are going to live in than listening to someone born in 1958.
There are exceptions, of course, but generally this is my personal experience.
Disclaimer: I'm turning 40 this year, so I'm getting closer to ramblingfartness.
"Piter, too, is dead."
That's the fault of the person she is conversing with, and basically the point I was making.
I'll take a 14 year old girls, and a 50 year old mans opinion/statement with an equal amount of salt. the 14 year old may have spent 4 years learning a subject, the 50 year old may have spent 30 years on the same subject, however the 14 year old doesn't really have much else to think about but that subject, whereas the 50 year old has well established political and ideological standards, its all intertwined with his family and employers/employees etc.
The 50 year old may have 30 years experience, but may be clinging to the same ideas from 30 years ago, and might be unaware of newer ideas, the 14 year old is most likely the reverse, they both have an equal amount of say on a subject as far as I am concerned. It's just more input to assist my own learning process, and in reverse I wouldn't favor teaching someone based on age or sex, only how interested they seemed to be, and/or how well we communicated with eachother.
The days of the Internet as some kind of Wild West where you can do and say whatever the fuck you want without having to take the consequences for it are coming to an end. If somebody want to be an asshole, he'd better be one anonymously from an Internet café... which shows just what a cowardly little shit he is.
A good many people depend on their good name for their living. Jerks who try to damage someone's ability to feed his children deserve to be punished.
I piss off bigots.
Forgetting the ethics of what this guy did, when will people learn that there are limits to anonymity online? I'm surprised how this keeps happening. People should know by now that they can be tracked.
People who are more technically inclined should know to use proxies. Especially those based in countries that are unlikely to give the UK access to their logs - read: China/Russia. What about Tor? Honestly, posting stuff online that could get you in trouble directly from your home computer is on the same level of intelligence as robbing a bank with a big sign bearing your name, address and phone number.
That is a rather disingenuous statement because we all make assumptions about speakers and very rarely can set aside natural bias. We are bombarded by too much information to process without some level of filtering (for better or worse)
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I think what you and the parent poster are missing is who has the burden of proof. In the US, the accuser has to prove that whatever was said was a lie (said knowingly and with malicious intent). In Britain, the default assumption is that the accused is guilty unless she can present the facts proving what she said was true.
The result is that in Britain, very rich (and very bad) people like Khalid bin Mahfouz (funds suicide bombers) and Roman Polanski (molests little girls) are able to shut up anyone trying to expose them.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
You really don't see what you did there do you? I'll take her absolutely seriously... Teenagers... can still be encouraged down the right path... Spending time listening to them... tells a lot more about the world we are going to live in... There are exceptions
You just said that you will take the seriously because you can guide them. If you're listening to someone to determine the direction in which they are misguided, you're not listenting to them.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
A civil action must be enforced by the government to be meaningful. A decision is made in a (government) court and if you don't pay what you are required to, you in fact just might see the inside of a jail cell. But either way it has nothing to do with whether you go to jail -- the point is that if a law is on the books (civil or criminal) that restricts what you say, that law is a government abridgment of your speech.