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Canadian Court Sides With Online Anonymity

Posted by Soulskill on from the probably-protecting-his-anti-bruins-rants dept.

bs0d3 writes "Michael Geist said of a recent Canadian court ruling, 'Anonymous speech can be empowering — whistleblowers depend upon it to safeguard their identity and political participants in some countries face severe repercussions if they speak out publicly — but it also carries the danger of posts that cross the line into defamation without appropriate accountability.' Although I disagree that defamation is an acceptable reason for a court to find someone's identity, the outcome of this trial seems favorable. The court was not asked to determine whether the posts at issue were in fact defamatory. Rather, it simply faced the question of whether it should order the disclosure of personal information about the posters themselves so that someone could proceed with a defamation lawsuit. The court relied on 'Warman v. Fournier,' a previous Canadian defamation case and asked, '(1) Whether there was a reasonable expectation of anonymity; (2) Whether the plaintiff established a prima facie case of wrongdoing by the poster; (3) Whether the plaintiff tried to identify the poster and was unable to do so; and (4) Whether the public interest favoring disclosure outweigh the legitimate interests of freedom of expression and right to privacy of the persons sought to be identified if the disclosure is ordered." In this case the order to identify the poster was denied. Since the plaintiff did not identify the specific defamatory words, she failed to establish a prima facie case of defamation. Moreover, the court also ruled that the posters had a reasonable expectation of anonymity and that there were insufficient efforts to try to identify them."

9 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. New Business Opportunity by arthurpaliden · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Safe Blog hosting.

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    Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
  2. How? by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 2

    How have the corporations overlooked the Canadian government for so long? How could a ruling that makes this much sense come out of a court of law in this day and age at these prices?

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    I got here through a series of tubes
    1. Re:How? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2

      You know, that explanation would make sense if it was not for the fact that as stricter rules have been imposed on campaign contributions, the influence of corporations has increased.

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      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    2. Re:How? by anyGould · · Score: 2

      You know, that explanation would make sense if it was not for the fact that as stricter rules have been imposed on campaign contributions, the influence of corporations has increased.

      I would say that their influence hasn't increased, but that it's more visible (since they can't hide it in campaign contributions anymore).

      Anyone who thinks that the Big Four parties have never been in corporate pockets over the last couple generations wasn't paying attention.

  3. Re:I'm safe then by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2

    Which, it should be noted, is a mite better than the mindset that wrote the Patriot Act would allow, so go ahead and tell your friends to move up here anyway.

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    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  4. I am amazed by mfh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With the current Harper government in power, I am totally amazed at this ruling. I applaud the judge for standing up for online anonymity.

    Also:
    RIP Jack Layton

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    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
  5. Girl With One Track Mind by roman_mir · · Score: 2

    Girl With One Track Mind can tell you all about the importance of being able to stay anonymous.

    Actually in her case she was doing a pretty good job at staying anonymous while posting her blog entries about her sex life, but then she published a book and some asshole 'journalists' tracked her down and gave out all her personal details.

    She lost her job.
    She stopped writing her blogs, and let's be honest, the readers lost an interesting character to read about on the interwebs.

    Staying anonymous is extremely important for many reasons, so people like facebookâ(TM)s marketing director Randi Zuckerberg, who also happens to be Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerbergâ(TM)s sister need to shut their yaps and stop spouting this type of nonsense:

    I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away⦠People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. ⦠I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.

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    You can't handle the truth.
  6. Link to Geist's article by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Looks like the blog is down.

    Anyways, Michael Geist's column is here:
    http://www.thestar.com/article/1032104--geist-court-grapples-with-legalities-of-anonymous-online-postings

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    Wearing pants should always be optional.
  7. Re:where do these people come from? by _0xd0ad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, I think GGP's point was that defamation is a crime and you shouldn't expect to be able to freely break the law just because you're online and think you're anonymous. A court can issue a subpoena to find out who you are.

    This Canadian ruling simply declined on the basis that the plaintiff didn't actually try to support her claim that she'd been defamed, therefore they weren't going to just willy-nilly rubber stamp a subpoena for her to find out the identity of someone she'd had a disagreement online.