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Yale Students' Lawsuit Unmasks Anonymous Trolls
palegray.net writes "Two female Yale law school students have used the courts to ascertain the identities of otherwise anonymous posters to an Internet forum, with the intent of prosecuting them for hateful remarks left on the boards. At a minimum, the posters' future legal careers are certainly jeopardized by these events. While I'm not certainly not supporting or encouraging hateful speech online, these controversial actions hold potentially far-reaching consequences for Internet privacy policy and free speech." According to the linked Wired Law article, "The women themselves have gone silent, and their lawyers — two of whom are now themselves being sued — are not talking to the press."
This is not a free speech issue - the posters made threatening and offensive comments, inlcuding suggesting that they would assault/rape the female students.
These comments would not be tolerated in any other setting so why should they be tolerated online?
This will almost certainly keep them out of the state Bar for a long period of time if not indefinitely. Even legally protected speech can be grounds for denial of bar membership.
The reason the article does NOT discuss it further is that they are trying to avoid pulling a "Fox News" where instead of lieing about a person you say "X news agency has reported that person A is in favor of killing all doctors that have committed Abortions".
They are studiously trying to protect the woman that have quite frankly had enough slander published about them and do not need the slanderous statements repeated.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
As per slashdot standard methodology I didn't read TFA, but I think the difference hinges on whether these were just generic comments from some misogynist, or whether he went further and threatened to rape these women. If it's case of somebody being directly threatened with violence, then there is no reasonable expectation that your anonymity would be protected.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Keep reading. It gets worse:
I'd say they have a reasonable case here.
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Of course, world-wide, we have different laws.
Hateful speech is not illegal.
See R. v. Keegstra. In Canada at least, you do not have an unlimited right to free speech, even if you are not targeting a specific person.
tl,dr: Making hateful statements against a particular identifiable group is illegal in Canada.
> a reply claiming "she has herpes."
That's per se libel so long as it counts as a "loathsome disease" and identifies a specific person. Which is, per my understanding, the case here.
I thought these were law school students? They're screwed. They have no defense if they can prove who made comments like that.
From the article and the court documents it appears that the plaintiffs are both "Jane Doe"s. That means that their identity was not explicitly known to everyone (else the Jane Doe ploy makes no sense) and that it is the supposed attacker's identity which is being exposed instead.
The article notes that "the Jane Doe plaintiffs contend that the postings about them became etched into the first page of search engine results on their names," which strongly suggests that the posts included their real names, not just their online handles. If so, then the Jane Doe thing is to further distance their names from the media and search engines.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
When that hateful remark is libel.
And, I want to point out some of the statements:
The thread included messages such as, "I think I will sodomize her. Repeatedly" and a reply claiming "she has herpes."
These are by far more than hateful remarks.
Sorta. Without getting too deep into it, only when there isn't an immenent threat of danger is it is protected. Its the difference between saying "I think all black people should die" and "lets go kill those black people over there".
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If he's allowed to say those things, then her father/brother/boyfriend should be allowed to brutally murder the AC to protect her from rape (he did say he'd rape her). We (society) afford you rights and place limits on those rights, in exchange we protect you from your fellow man. Them's the rules. "God" didn't give us any rights, your rights are, in practice, what society decides your rights are. Often I disagree with society, but not in this case.
I realize I am breaking some kind of Slashdot rule here, but I've googled this further.
On March 9, the Dean of Yale's law school wrote this: "The Washington Post ran a story about several of our students who have been personally targeted on an internet message board. While this message board purports to be about law school and law school admissions, it contains numerous sexist, racist, homophobic and other derogatory comments by anonymous posters. Some of these comments include the names and personal information of our students and other individuals, along with many false and hurtful assertions."
Furthermore, their names are stated clearly in this PDF of Ciolli's lawsuit against the two women.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
With respect, I disagree. Law firms, particularly "prestigious" corporate firms, are notoriously risk-averse and likely would not hire someone who had "achieved" net notoriety, no matter how smart or otherwise qualified. I would assume that most potential hires are vetted at the least through a google search, if not a more detailed Lexis investigation.
If you were a blue chip firm, would you take the risk of hiring one of these women? Imagine your multi-million dollar client does a search on your new associate's name -- even just looking for phone number -- and comes up with a sordid sex story instead. Wow.... there's a real risk that you have just damaged the relationship with that client. Just as one example -- look at the Department of Justice's search on potential attorney hires. Now the DOJ was illegally considering political affiliation, not net fame, but the principle is the same: defamatory net stories would likely have prohibited these women from being considered.
That big firms are risk averse is hardly surprising. In fact, risk-aversion/paranoia is what -- in theory anyway -- is what makes an $x00 an hour lawyer worth paying for.
Note: this is also why I left a wanna-be big firm after a couple years. Who wants to work in an environment like that? But certaintly these women have the right to experience the hell of Big Firm life for themselves, and should not have had their careers permanently damaged because of a couple of idiots decided to slander them for fun.
The thread included messages such as, "I think I will sodomize her. Repeatedly" and a reply claiming "she has herpes." The second woman, Jane Doe II, was similarly attacked beginning in January 2007.
Claiming someone has herpes is libel. The "similarly" attacked stuff was a lot worse.
I also am aware of the situation from previous articles about the problem.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Presumably, the women were as anonymous as the trolls
RTFA
Right. I'm never going to hire Jane Doe I or Jane Doe II, ever. I don't want to be sued if I say I want to rape them. Riiiiight.
This has never been true with using "anonymous forums" on the Internet, really.
For example, someone just recently commented on Craigslist's "Rants & Raves" forum how his brother was paid a visit by "Homeland Security" here in the USA, because he had posted an anonymous comment advocating the shooting of the current president.
Anonymous message forums I've seen and used never gave me a written guarantee that my identity would never be subject to being uncovered if I posted there. They merely function anonymous as a matter of "general practice", subject to the prevailing laws of the land.
IMHO, anyone posting hate speech or directly attacking people by name on an "anonymous" forum should be aware that they better use methods of their own to ensure they can't be traced back by IP address to their whereabouts. Relying on the forum to "shield" them from the law is a risky bet, at best.
Not only that, but the guy Cialli's (whom she sued) job offer was rescinded (leaving him jobless) due to their suit!
TFA makes it sound like these women are all upset because some asshat on the internet made a comment about how some women should be raped.
That'd be the short version... The long version is that these women had their pictures posted on the forum, without their knowledge, where the anonymous posters proceeded to rate their looks and say how much they'd like to fark them. But that's not the issue...
The girls found out about it and asked the forum operator to remove the threads. He not only refused, he posted the exchange on the forum. But that's not the issue either...
In response to this, the posters stepped it up, with some at the girls' law schools posting their class schedules, addresses, and even following them to the gym, posting photos and their usual schedules, and exhorting others to follow them and rape them. That's the issue.
You are absolutely wrong. Freedom of speech means freedom from consequences. If someone will take action against you for saying something, then you aren't free to speak.
The government is legally required to respect your freedom of speech; they cannot fine, imprison, harrass, or otherwise act against you because of something you have said. However, only the government is required to respect your freedom of speech; private people can do whatever they want in response to what you've said, so long as they don't break the law. For example, if you say something that I find offensive, I may refuse to hire or do business with you. I can do this because (a) I could legally have done it even if you had kept quiet, and (b) I am a private person, not part of any government.
In this case, a court has taken action against posters: it has revealed their identities, thus exposing them to harassment and other consequences from private parties. Since the court is a government agency, it can't do that.
Well, since the article points out that the women were, in fact, specifically named, and there were calls to rape and sodomize them, and at least one was specifically accused of having herpes, and the posts got so much attention that they were at the top of Google results for the women's names, I'd say this pretty much qualifies as direct. There's no slippery slope to worry about here. These guys should be prosecuted and should never be permitted to practice law.
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Of course a court can take action based on speech. What do you think happens in a defamation suit?
You sound like you're against this result, but your argument supports it. No one said these guys don't have a right to say disgusting shit, but their statements were lies or threats or calls to harassment or other things that have no merit and are wholly intended to be harmful to specific people.