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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!"
Seems like they're following the correct procedure here. They've identified specific posts, shown them to a judge, had the judge determine that they have a cause of action based on those specific posts, and now are proceeding to ask for the identities of the people who made those posts so they can proceed with legal action. That's in contrast to other cases where the demand is a blanket demand not based on showing that specific posts are actionable.
The right to state your views anonymously does not extend to being a shield against liability if your statements are found to be actionable.
And if they were the RIAA, it would magically become 17 000 people.
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.
...we're going to have to take back everything we've said about CowboyNeal?
Have gnu, will travel.
First, it wouldn't be slander, it would be libel. Slander is spoken. Libel is written.
I've always thought that was a silly distinction for the law to make. The words are the problem, not the medium. What difference does it make whether it was spoken or written?
And what happens if I slander someone, and someone else writes it down? Am I guilty of libel now that my statements have been committed to paper?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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