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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.
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.
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.