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Texas Judge Orders Identification of Topix Trolls
eldavojohn writes "Ars Technica has a story on a Texas judge who has ordered Topix.com to hand over the identifying details of 178 trolls that allegedly made 'perverted, sick, vile, inhumane accusations' about Mark & Rhonda Lesher. Mark Lesher was accused of sexually assaulting an unidentified former client (and subsequently found not guilty) which prompted the not so understanding discussions on Topix. Topix has until March 6 to give up the information. Let's hope the Leshers don't visit Slashdot!"
Odds are good that the company will turn over the records, and nothing will come of it after that. Can you imagine them going after 170 people at once? I can't, unless they are the RIAA.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=define%3A+cad
Although, from what little I know of the situation, I disagree with the assertion that the judge is a cad. At face value it looks like he is doing the correct thing. He was presented with specific posts that are legally actionable and he is continuing the action on those posts.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I complained to my daughter's principle that my daughter's teacher was a racist and wasn't doing her job -- and promptly received a "Cease and Desist" order from the teacher's lawyer accusing my of "Interfering with [the teacher's] business relationships" and "defamation"! Let's face it -- ANY comment made online could be considered actionable! I'm sorry, but I still believe my right to free speech extends to offensive speech, and that readers should be intelligent enough to recognize hyperbole when they see it -- especially in an anonymous post! Or do you think every time some punk in WoW calls me a "faggot", I should be able to turn around and sue him?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
God forbid this judge actually visit part of the internet... I shudder to think what would happen if he saw 4chan... although it would be pretty funny. "Judge orders anonymous to turn itself in."
"Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
Personally I don't even remember if I had heard that this couple had been accused of anything. Now I will forever remember them as the couple who gave a flying fucking rats ass what was said about them on the second most pointless forum on the Internet, Topix.
I never heard of them either (and will, no doubt, forget their names quickly enough). I also don't give a rat's ass what was said about them anywhere.
But they obviously care if vitriolic untruths were spread about them in a public forum. Perhaps the next time one of them applies for a job, or tries to rent an apartment (for instance), that vitriol will come up in the google search. It is significant for them now and in the future.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Sigh.
The ability to sue for libel, slander and general defamation does not infringe the right to free speech, because it does not restrict speech. It just does what most civil law is intended to do: hold people accountable for harm they cause.
To see an example, suppose you're a programmer looking for a job, and a company is about to hire you. But then someone at the company reads a post I've written about you on the Internet where I make (false) claims that you don't know anything about programming, that you were incompetent and cost my company lots of money, etc., and as a result they decide not to hire you. My post has caused actual harm to you (loss of a job opportunity), and you could bring a lawsuit against me to recover damages. Not a lawsuit forbidding me to write things, or forbidding me to say what's on my mind, but simply to compensate you for the harm my words caused. This is really no different from, say, being forced to pay to replace a window if I throw a rock through it.
And that distinction -- between regulating the act of speech, and holding people accountable for the consequences of the action -- is what makes all the Constitutional difference (a law forbidding you to speak would be unconstitutional -- the term is "prior restraint"). In other words, it's the difference between saying, before the fact, "you aren't allowed to do that" and saying, after the fact, "you must make amends for what you did". The former, when speech is involved, is called prior restraint and there are very few cases in which it's allowed. The latter is simply called a civil suit, and is as common as weeds.
Prior to this I'd never heard of Topix before... and after reading everything on here I'm going to pretend I still haven't heard of it.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
At one point in time, Texas was primarily filled with Texans. After the oil boom in the 80s and the rise of the Sun Belt, tons upon tons upon tons of people relocated to Texas. They didn't care a fig for how Texans did things in the past, and immediately began changing things to suit themselves. Prior to this, Texas and the United States sort of held each other at arm's length, which suited both parties.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Texas likes to protect its citizens from the tyranny of federal government so that the tyranny of state government has someone left to act on.
It is important to note that a decision that appears bad or stupid may well result from a perfectly smart and competent judge correctly interpreting a bad or stupid law.
When a judge says the law says something you don't like, don't blame the judge unless you really think the law says something different than they do. Cases where there is good reason to disagree about what the law says are not nearly so common as cases where the law clearly and unarguably says something dumb.
I want to see if the secret B.O.R. gives you the right to not be made to feel bad by someones free speech.
You misunderstand both the Bill of Rights and Free Speech.
First: The Bill of Rights is a set of limits on government and its officials, not on other people. (And it solely recognizes preexisting rights and warns the government to not to try to take them away, rather than creating them.)
Second: The right to free speech that the Bill of Rights recognizes is a right to not be blocked in advance, not a right to be immune from a claim for restitution for any damages or losses to others that your speech caused.
Just as the right to bear arms isn't a right to shoot innocent parties without expectation of punishment and the right to free exercise of religion isn't a right to perform human sacrifice of unwilling victims, the right to free speech isn't a right to destroy someone else's valuable reputation with lies without having to pay him for the damage you caused.
(It IS a right to destroy his valuable but UNEARNED reputation with TRUTH. In the United States truth is an absolute defense against claims of defamation. But you'd better be prepared to back up your claims - in a civil court, where the standard is "preponderance of evidence", not "beyond reasonable doubt".)
(And the obligatory IANAL.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
God forbid this judge actually visit part of the internet
Excessively bad behavior by a large (or active) enough minority will destroy a free and civil society by causing "everyone else" to defend themselves by enacting more and more laws to try and tamp down such disruptive behavior.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
What's Topix? Some kind of forum I gather. Does it have a moderation system? Wait. Don't answer that. I don't care.
The broader term is defamation.
When it was originally developed the distinction between the form probably made more sense. Because there was no other, more practical way to mechanically record and reproduce the spoken word, libelous material was naturally easier to distribute than slander.
Several hundred years later, not so much.
You are absolutely free to voice or write an opinion. You are even absolutely free to voice or write an absolute falsehood. But, if you write a falsehood that harms another person, you are responsible for that harm; that is what slander/libel laws are about.
Imagine that there was an amendment that says "Americans have the right to throw bricks". If you throw a brick through some one's window, you'll still have to pay for it. If you throw a brick at some one's head and kill them, you will be charged with manslaughter.
Just because you can throw bricks, doesn't mean you can cause harm to others and escape punishment. Just because you have free speech doesn't mean you can say anything you want and avoid the consequences.