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Judge Rules To Reveal Anonymous Blogger's Identity Over Insults
Several readers have written to tell us of a ruling in the New York Supreme Court which will allow model Liskula Cohen to find out the identity of an anonymous blogger who posted some of her photos with captions including the words "psychotic," "skank," and "ho." The site was part of Blogger.com, and Google has already complied with a request for the author's IP address and email. "[Cohen's attorney] said that once his legal team tracks the e-mail address to a name, the next step will be to sue Cohen's detractor for defamation. He said he suspected the creator of the blog is an acquaintance of Cohen. The blog has not been operational for months. The unidentified creator of the blog was represented in court by an attorney, Anne Salisbury, who said her client voluntarily took the blog down when Cohen initiated legal action against it. ... the judge quoted a Virginia court that ruled in a similar case that nameless online taunters should be held accountable when their derision crosses a line. 'The protection of the right to communicate anonymously must be balanced against the need to assure that those persons who choose to abuse the opportunities presented by this medium can be made to answer for such transgressions.'"
For once, it's worth reading TFA until the end, when you find out: that the blog had "minuscule" traffic, it was taken down as soon as the lawsuit was filed, and it only had 5 posts all written in one day. Basically the blog was dead.
Sure, as a public figure, it's never fun to be insulted on the Internet (ask Mike Arrington if you don't believe me). But this didn't seem to warrant a full-fledged lawsuit.
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This humble Anonymous Coward who has invested thousands of hours into the defamation and character assassination of a one Robert Malda of Slashdot would like to beg forgiveness from the very respectable Mr. Malda before he forces a judge to make himself turn over my IP address in order to sue me for slander and libel.
I agree that there needs to be a balance against the anoymous people who fear reprisal to people who just want to cause damage.
But in this case, I don't think it is the case. Putting "SKANK" on a picture of a model is no different than putting "SOCIALIST" on Obama's picture. I believe both should be covered by the 1st amendment. Google should have gone to bat for the blogger.
I didn't see the guys blog so I can't say, but unless the blog contained more than just pictures with editorial descriptions, this ruling should be reversed.
We don't live in Shouldland.
So sue me.
If this guy is tracked down I hope the judge tells him to use a proxy next time.
Wow it must be nice to be able to force people to do whatever you want. If I could file a lawsuit to force slashdot to reveal the IP and email of every user that has ever insulted me and then sue them for 5000 each I'd be a very rich and happy man...
Should have went to law school....or had a wealthy mommy and daddy... or become an actor....
The judge today issued a warrant for "I. C. Wiener" of 405 West 43rd Street to appear in court.
And Civilization lurches slightly forward.
Lookit, you want to call Bush a Nazi Warmonger or Obama an Incompetent Puppet, or speak any kind of Truth to Power, I will be shoulder to shoulder with you on the ramparts in defense of your Freedom to Speak, you're a Patriot. You want to call a lady a "skanky ho," try to damage her reputation, and then hide like a coward, you are a Cad.
The Internet has changed many things, but it has not changed everything.
Keep in mind that, in New York, the "New York Supreme Court" is their trial court, and its rulings can be overturned on appeal.
Ibid.
People here keep harping that the internet is no different than other media in Point of view of first admendment and right to privacy. The question IS NOT "is it fair that the anonymity was revealed" but the question IS would this with other normal older media be a ground for a libel/slander lawsuit or not ? Would a photo poster with the person with " is a psychotic skank" a ground for slander ? Forget the part where it is a blog. Think about what the LAW would be for the older media. And in such a case, I think there is a good ground to say posting poster with " is a psychotic skank" can be seen as slandering. Once you have that step, then be it a paper poster, blog, or graved on a stone.
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In my view, we should now preface everything we say with "I think" or "In my opinion". I think. In my opinion, we would then be immune from such lawsuits, which I think are idiotic. At least that's my opinion. Hereby released into the public domain, in my view.
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In this instance, not only is calling someone a "skank" an opinion, but the person - as a model - is essentially a public figure.
Is she a celebrity? I've never heard of her. My wife does voice-over work and is a news anchor on a bunch of local radio stations. You've never heard of her, but is she "essentially a public figure" and fair game? I know dozens of people who act in and produce independent films, they're all over IMDB, you've never heard of these performers, but they're professional actors and movie producers. Are they "fair game?"
How many people have to recognize your name before you are a "public figure" and thereby forfeit your right to know the identify of your accusers?
Internet anonymity exists only until people in authority decide to unmask it. While slash dot has hosted many a discussion about forwarding and posting services, none appear in the long run to be absolutely immune to eventual revelation.
The lesson here is simple: Whether you are a "whistle blower" of government or business abuse, a "wannabe" revealer of crime sources, or (apparently in this case) someone who desires to slander, libel, or otherwise defame someone without justification, you will remain anonymous only until someone in authority decides otherwise.
For those in this forum who use other examples of people who appear to have successfully used web anonymity, be cautious before drawing premature conclusions. After all, in any given case, who is to say that someone who thinks they have been anonymous for the last five years is not merely in the middle of a 6 to 10 year investigation that includes secret monitoring by federal authorities?
In the end, the old advice still stands, "do not post anything that you would not want attributed to you on the evening news at the worst possible time and with the most unkind possible bias."
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This is going to be awesome if it goes to court and the court rules that she is, in fact, "a skank".
I can see the T-shirts now ...
My initial thought isn't that the subject of the blog is the one with the issues.
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Basically what you are saying is that if I say something insulting and demeaning about someone, and you agree, it is gravy. But if you disagree with me and find it indecent it is a completely different story.
Uh, so the jist of this is, someone called someone else some names "out loud" (legal-beagle bullshit between verbal and print aside for a moment), and for some fucking reason this manages to bypass the 1st Amendment?
Uh, anyone else wanna get in line with me to bitch-slap the shit out of this legal ruling all the way back to 1964?
Give me a fucking break. I'd like to find the moron twitness they're going to bring in to give me the "legal" definition to prove she's NOT a "Skank" or "Ho". What, are they going to consult the Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia as a reference for those, or does Webster stand as a more definitive source? If she's fucked more than 3 guys this year, does that qualify as "Ho" status, or does she need a pimp? Then again, don't all models have a "pimp" of some kind anyway?
Nevermind the fact that she's a model, and therefore should legally fall under "public figure" with regards to libel/slander/defamation. However, if she would prefer NOT to be a public figure, keep pushing, and I'm sure you'll manage to burn all your bridges for model work in the future.
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What a cunning stunt it is indeed!
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She's in the miserable position of being a 36-year old second-tier ex-model. That's tough.
Modeling is a low-paying job, except at the top. The top 100 models make real money. The next 500 models do about as well as a successful office worker. Below that, nobody is making real money. The pay is high during work, but there are long dry spells. It's like acting in that respect. In LA, you meet broke actress/model/waitress types so often that it's a cliche.
The work isn't really that much fun, either. Most models aren't doing fashion shows; they're doing catalogs and ads. "OK, next is dress DL-3342, blue, and hurry it up, we have fifty more to shoot before lunch."
Cohen had her face face slashed in a bar a couple of years ago (also here). My guess would be that this lawsuit was an effort to find out if the same guy was after her again.
There's a little more to this than anonymous insults on the Internet, and in this case it is probably justifiable to reveal the blogger's identity. Ideally, the police would look into it and determine whether or not the blogger is a threat (without making his identity public), but they likely do not have time to investigate anonymous Internet insults.
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Whatever right you may think you have to anonymity -- a dubious concept, just because you're used to it doesn't make it law -- it comes to an end when you defame someone. If you want to be anonymous, then behave yourself. Otherwise, man up and take responsibility for your actions.
Anonymity is valuable in repressive regimes and when people need certain kinds of assistance -- like gay teenagers or people seeing advice about venereal diseases. But most of the time, it's pernicious.
I piss off bigots.
Yes, that is pretty much the way American law is, and also the way American law should be (IMHO); and the important arbiter of the disagreement is truth. If she is, in fact, a skanky ho, then that will be demonstrated in court, and the skanky ho will lose. If she is not, in fact, a skanky ho, and that can be demonstrated, then the slanderer has in fact diminished her reputation, and is liable for that indecency. Furthermore, the law only begins to apply at sufficiently egregious degrees of speech, which will also have to be demonstrated to the judge. That is how it is, and how it should be (IMHO). Do you think it should be different? If so, do you think there should be no line at all (all slander is permissible) or do you think the line should be drawn somewhere else?
Writing that someone is a "ho" isn't a crime, but it's probably defamation in many jurisdictions. In California, for example, impugning the chastity of a woman is defamation -- and I suspect that applies whether she's a "public figure" or not.
In the court order, the judge specifically states that impugnment of her chastity is the reason for granting the order.
However, if she's a public-figure then it need be proven that it was done with actual malice, and not simply negligently.
I find it more interesting that if you say that impugning the chastity of a woman is always wrong, what kind of insults can you hurl at her? All general insults for women are rooted in impugning the woman's chastity. Namely, "bitch" "ho" "skank" "slut"... the general insults of "jerk" "asshole" and "fucker" rarely are applied to women.
To me, it takes more than simply using a word that is rooted in impugning the woman's chastity in order to actually impugn her chastity. One has to specifically specify that one believes that she is unchaste. Simply calling someone a "slut" often is not intended to be a statement of fact that she is unchaste... it's simply the insults that our language affords for women.
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