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."

Comments

Profound news

[mazarin5]

Libel is libel, even on the Internet.

Re:Profound news

[Anonymous Coward]

OP here: disregard that, I suck cocks.

Re:Profound news

[russotto]

No, libel is hugely different on the internet. Want to draw attention to opposing opinions, launch a libel suit, want to create the impression that you have a hugely inflated opinion of your self worth - launch a libel suit, perversely enough, want the convince people that you have something to hide launch a libel suit and, finally want to convince people that you have more money than sense, launch a libel suit.

If some dickhead with zero reputation is saying bad things about you on the Internet, sure, it's pointless to sue them for libel; in the US you might even have trouble proving damages. But if some dickhead is credibly impersonating you, using your own name and reputation to say false and derogatory things about you, that's a different matter. It would be worth suing to get an injunction if nothing else.

Re:Profound news

[Original Replica]

Online libel is serious even if you are an Average Joe, looking to get a job or maybe just stay out of prison. There has been enough of this kind of stuff discussed here on /. recently that it should be obvious that a carefully made false FaceBook page could be seriously damaging to even an average person. Just a site that degrades you might be enough to create a bad impression if it shows up on the first page when your name is Googled. Now if that site appears to be made by you it's even worse.

I enjoy the anonimity of the Internet.

[Chiasmus_]

I like being able to post completely anonymously. I even like being able to misinform people about my identity. 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.

But not as a specific 50-year-old man who actually exists. While I think we should all have the right to conceal our identity, we certainly shouldn't have the right to assume someone else's.

This is the least controversial thing I have ever written.

Re:I enjoy the anonimity of the Internet.

[rwillard]

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.

Funny, that usually goes in reverse.

Re:I enjoy the anonimity of the Internet.

[Vectronic]

"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.

Re:I enjoy the anonimity of the Internet.

[digitig]

"Merits own their on seriously taken be will ideas her if see and man 50-year-old a as pose can girl 14-year-old a that thing good a it's think I"?

Seems about right

[rossz]

While the UK libel laws are still in need of serious fixing, it looks like they got this one right.

Libel in Britain

[jd]

...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.

Re:Libel in Britain

[shalla]

Libel in Britain tends to be taken 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.

Okay. Let's clear this sucker up. For the last damn time (in my dreams, eh?), your right to free speech in the US is your right to free speech AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. You do not have the right to libel anyone or anything you want. The Constitution protects your right to make comments about the government, to agitate peacefully for government change, to seek redress, to petition the government, etc.

When people say "I can say whatever I want! I'm entitled to my free speech!"? They're usually freaking morons. Unless they were talking to or about the government, it just ain't so. There are ramifications for what you say about other people or institutions.

Re:Libel in Britain

[coljac]

I don't think there's an exemption in slander laws for a particular corner of Hyde Park. Indeed, Wikipedia says:

"A Speakers' Corner is an area where public speaking is allowed. The original and most noted is in the north-east corner of Hyde Park in London, England. Speakers there are allowed to speak as long as the police consider their speeches lawful. Contrary to mythology there is no immunity from the law, nor are any subjects proscribed. In practice the police tend to be tolerant and intervene when they receive a complaint or when they hear bad language."

Re:Libel in Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not have the right to libel anyone or anything you want

But in the US, to show slander or libel, you have to show that you had a reputation to reduce, that your reputation was reduced, that this reduction in reputation caused you monetary damage, and that whatever was said about you was false. The standards are different in Britain.

Re:Libel in Britain

[beadfulthings]

I dunno. There is a certain fairly popular blog in the U.K. that I read daily. (The blog has a basically religious content. Please read past that if it might bother you.) A couple of years ago, it seems that a pair of American lawyers, brothers from Texas, decided to launch a campaign to convert England to (Russian) Orthodoxy. To that end, they formed a "Charitable Trust," presumably under the laws of the UK.

At about the same time, the oldest chain of religious booksellers in England (the SPCK, which actually dates back to the 1600's) found itself in financial turmoil at a number of its stores. The Texas lawyers somehow winkled a large number of these stores away from the SPCK at fire-sale terms, in exchange for vague promises to keep things basically the way they were--in terms of the variety of stock, the employees, and other aspects of the stores. Apparently the SPCK shops were widely respected because they carried a broad spectrum of religious and philosophical tomes representing many viewpoints as opposed to confining themselves to Christian theology.

The story of what happened next was pretty tragic, and the blogger in question chronicled it faithfully. Books on philosophy and theologies other than Christian were swept away wholesale to be replaced by narrow, fundamentalist pop-tripe. Agreements with employees were terminated, often without notice. People had their vacation hours and sick/personal days taken away despite being represented by a union (or the British version of a union). Customers began staying away in droves. A rather pathetic Website was installed that was basically an amazon.uk storefront. A few days later, Google pronounced it unsafe and refused to allow people to visit it from search results without a strongly-worded warning not to do so.

Still the blogger continued to blog about it, though his regular focus is generally a lot more humourous. There were times when no one else was saying a word. Bookstores began to be closed. People continued to be fired without notice or arrived at work to find the shops shuttered.

The union representing a number of the employees signaled its intention to seek relief for them through the British courts. That, in turn, seemed to cause the Texas lawyers to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in their native Texas, far away from England. They then argued in the British courts that this should protect them from the action by the union.

Meanwhile, the blogger continued to blog. Newspapers ran an occasional article, but his blog had become the default gathering point for former employees, people who just plain missed the old bookstores, and people who were outraged at the heavy-handed behavior of the foreign lawyers- turned-missionaries.

Tragedy struck about a month ago in the form of a suicide by a longstanding and much-respected bookstore manager who became despondent after being let go along with his staff. That attracted the interest of several national papers, and his funeral was so large they had to hold it in a cathedral as opposed to his regular parish church. Naturally, messages of condolence and outrage piled up in the blogger's blog as well as in other blogs with similar interests.

This went on until about three days ago, when the blog contained a tersely worded message. The blogger had been the recipient of a cease-and-desist letter from one of the brothers. He did not have the funds to retain legal counsel or continue the fight. All references to the issue had been removed, together with their comments. Twenty-four hours later, even that post was removed.

As nearly as I can tell, after having followed this for over a year, no libel was committed, either in blog posts or in comments. People who wanted to attack the Texas lawyers personally were gently but firmly reminded that this wouldn't be tolerated, and their comments were removed.

I'd have to say that a voice in the UK has gone silent that should have been allowed to continue speaking. While this affects only a small section of the gen

And if your livelihood depends on your reputation?

[EWAdams]

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.

not really true

[commodoresloat]

It's not so much what you say, but who is doing the restricting. In other words, the first amendment says the government may not abridge the freedom to say whatever you want, not that you only have the right to speak against the government. It says the government may not restrict your speech. So a corporate entity or whatever may restrict your speech without running afoul of the Constitution but the government may not. That includes speech about things that have no political or governmental implications whatsoever. Libel is considered an exception to the first amendment, but proving libel requires certain things (that, as the original poster correctly pointed out, are different in the US than they are in Britain). But make no mistake about it -- a successful libel lawsuit is certainly a GOVERNMENT restriction of free speech.

Re:not really true

[megaditto]

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.

Dumb

[ebonum]

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.