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Illinois Supreme Court: Comcast Must Identify Anonymous Internet Commenter
An anonymous reader writes: In 2011, an anonymous person on the internet posted a comment to the Freeport Journal Standard newspaper's website implying that a local political candidate was a pedophile. The candidate, Bill Hadley, took offense to this, and tried to get Comcast to tell him who the commenter was. Comcast refused, so Hadley took it to the courts. The Illinois Supreme Court has now ruled (PDF) that Comcast must divulge the commenter's identity. "Illinois' opinion was based in large part on a pair of earlier, lower-court decisions in the state, which held that the anonymity of someone who makes comments in response to online news stories isn't guaranteed if their opinions are potentially defamatory, according to Don Craven, an attorney for the Illinois Press Association."
When he finds out the commenter was an 11 year old middle-schooler on his lunch break in the library, and not the great political adversary that he's making it out to be.
Not only that, but it's exceedingly difficult to make an example out of an 11 year old, to other 11 year olds, and not looking like an out of touch politician who's been expertly trolled by someone one fifth his age. This seems like a huge waste of resources, politically and judicially.
I don't think he will be disappointed. I think the purpose of the lawsuit is to send a message to Mr. Hadley's future political opponents to be careful what they say about him. In other words, this is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech.
The comment in question falls under political speech. The commenter is commenting on a political candidate, after all.
I don't think so. Politically motivated, perhaps, but implying someone is a paedophile isn't the same thing as disagreeing with his political views.
Calling a candidate a pedophile hardly differs from the bipartisan mudslinging that takes place in most elections anyway.
That's a poor argument. I'd sooner say everyone should stop with the senseless mudslinging and talk about political issues again. Then again, in 'murika it's all about entrenched "views" that merely serve to pick sides in the perpetual shouting match you call "politics" but everyone else has long since lost interest in, since both sides appear to want exactly the same thing: Shout at the other side some more.
That's hardly "political discourse". It's just shouting.
IMO, the Supreme Court has exceeded it's authority in this case.
And that's poor grammar.
On December 29, an individual using the name Fuboy posted the following comment: Hadley is a Sandusky waiting to be exposed. Check out the view he has of Empire [Elementary School in Freeport, Illinois] from his front door.
So of course an anonymous comment is no reason to believe someone is a pedophile, unless corroborated by further evidence.
But still, when I hear of defamation lawsuits like this, I always think back to Oscar Wilde.
He sued for defamation when someone outed him as homosexual. He lost and legal fees bankrupted him. And because sodomy was a crime, he was thrown in jail.
I don't think he will be disappointed. I think the purpose of the lawsuit is to send a message to Mr. Hadley's future political opponents to be careful what they say about him. In other words, this is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech.
Accusing someone of molesting children is political speech now? Sure...
Isn't it right that people are careful what they say about other people?
Defamation, along with obscenity and inciting panic or violence, have never been free speech. Slander and libel are civil crimes that you can be sued for in court, and it's been that way since day one. To facilitate enforcement of defamation laws, the court has decided it's acceptable to try and de-anonymize the poster in question.
Just because the words are about a political candidate, does not make it political speech. This case is not the same as speaking unpopular political views and opinions - that WOULD be protected speech. It's the difference between supporting Nazi idealism (free speech) and accusing someone of being a Nazi (not free speech).
=Smidge=
there are limits to everything. Calling somebody a pedophile stops any discourse. There is no argument you can bring against this. If you have legitimate problems of this nature with the guy go to public prosecutor and clarify the issue. There are also organizations that can help judge if such claim is valid and in pursuing prosecution. Just throwing such abuse in public is wrong.
Free Speech does not equate to guaranteed anonymity.
Accusing someone of molesting children is political speech now? Sure...
Isn't it right that people are careful what they say about other people?
I am a firm believer in free speech. The cure for bad speech (as the accusation apparently was) is not less bad speech but more good speech. If I were accused, anonymously, of pedophilia, I would not try to use the courts to find my accuser. Instead I would ignore the accusation unless it was repeated by an identifiable person, such as a reporter asking if it were true. I would answer the reporter by saying it was not, and offering to cooperate with the reporter's investigation into whether or not I was a podophile if he felt the accusation was credible enough to be worth the effort.
In other words, this is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech.
That depends. If you think smear campaigns are a legitimate weapon of politics, then yes.* ... * In which case you're welcome to explain how this is not a legitimate defence against smear campaigns.
The proper defense against a smear campaign is not to try to silence the smearer, but to defend yourself against the merits of the attack. If it is a bare, unsupported, accusation, just deny it. If the smearer offers evidence, offer evidence of your own that the accusation is untrue. The cure for bad speech is not less bad speech but more good speech.
I am a firm believer in free speech. The cure for bad speech (as the accusation apparently was) is not less bad speech but more good speech.
Fine, but doesn't there have to be consequences when someone just makes shit up about someone else? Especially when it's something that is such a powderkeg in current climate? We don't consider it reasonable that people prove a negative, so you're already on the backfoot if someone decides to start a rumour. With Twitter and Wikipedia, it's very easy for a rumour to get repeated so much it feels like the truth.
For this kind of smear, in this kind of context? No, no "more speech" isn't the solution, it actually makes it worse to issue denials as it makes the original allegation more prominent, and makes a large percentage of the population think it might be true because "there's no smoke without fire."
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
There have been convictions for internet obscenity. Bush (or Ashcroft? I don't know who to attribute this to) set up an "Obscenity Prosecution Task Force" in 2005 and successfully prosecuted several pornographers.
Free Speech does not equate to guaranteed anonymity.
Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've been thinking about the cost of anonymity. I think it's an often necessary element of political speech, but it's not free. It requires a sacrifice on the part of the person who chooses anonymity.
There is a reason society is suspicious of people who cover their faces.
A blanket expectation of anonymity in all things is unreasonable if you want to participate fully in society. If everyone were completely anonymous, I believe that would likely be an impediment to free speech. Because at some point, credibility is required.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
Sure you can. Free speech protects the speaker from prosecution based on beliefs or opinions, but does not free the speaker from accountability. The key exception would be protection of whistleblowers, press, and their sources. Slander does not fall into those veins.
My logic does not say that. You cited an example of criminal prosecution for expressing an opinion. That is not free speech.
If it is a bare, unsupported, accusation, just deny it. If the smearer offers evidence, offer evidence of your own that the accusation is untrue.
For example, an ad to show that I am not a witch. Everyone will believe that.
There is a reason society is suspicious of people who cover their faces.
Yes, absolutely. I am one of those people, I rant about ACs all the time here on Slashdot — but my question is why should anyone take you seriously, and if they have a good answer, that's great. Usually they don't, if I'm bothering to ask the question.
But really, it's society's responsibility not to take anonymous people seriously when they make unfounded allegations, and to either follow up on them responsibly, or not at all. That is the solution to the down sides of people being permitted to make anonymous statements. Just be discerning.
Obviously, the people who are shouting at us loudest lose if we are discerning, so it's not in their best interest to promote that. Hence the self-perpetuating shitstorm that is the modern media.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Let me introduce you to Dale Akiki. Patently false accusations, including that he had sacrificed a giraffe in a church classroom during Sunday services, landed him in an extended court trial. He was eventually exonerated, but for a long stretch of the 1990s, everyone in San Diego knew he was a satanic pedophile.
There is nothing that an anonymous person can say about someone that I will take seriously without evidence. So, if an anonymous person says that candidate X is a pedophile, but offers no evidence, I will take it as the ranting of a liar, and candidate X has not been harmed in any way, beyond registering as a person who has angered some random anonymous coward. On the other hand, if candidate X takes it upon himself to waste the court's time with crap which endangers the anonymity of legitimately fearful critics of policy everywhere, I suddenly believe candidate X is an ass, unelectable, and possibly even a pedophile.
Anonymity was popular with the Ku Klux Klan. That's why anti-Klan laws often have a prohibition on being masked in public.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
Sure you can. Free speech protects the speaker from prosecution based on beliefs or opinions, but does not free the speaker from accountability.
That's nice in theory, but in the real world but the only protection people have against prosecution for what they said is anonymity. Try offending a mob boss, saying something your local police department really doesn't like, printing cartoons of a prophet, etc, and see if your government's protections for free speech save you from being persecuted for what you said.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
We want the ability to stay anonymous, however if someone else abuses such rights, we want them to be punished.
Speak for yourself. I just want freedom of speech (for which anonymity is a key protection). When it crosses the line into physical action, then I'll consider the use of force.
This is 2015. We have the Internet. You'd think people would learn to take ACs with a sack of salt.
If he was using TOR, or a VPN or anything, they're Out of luck anyways. Plus as they said above, its not like the ISP keeps 4 year old logs..
"If he was using TOR, or a VPN or anything, they're Out of luck anyways. Plus as they said above, its not like the ISP keeps 4 year old logs"
And if they did, wouldn't it be against the law? Perhaps forbidden tree etc?
Plus as they said above, its not like the ISP keeps 4 year old logs"
And if they did, wouldn't it be against the law? Perhaps forbidden tree etc?
IANAL but I imagine the moment something was file in court, the ISP was required to retain all those records until final disposition.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.
-- Robert A. Heinlein
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Bullshit. Trolls are an important part of why anonimity is needed. They pull out and open up the issues. They show us our emotions, and what we react to. Without them we lose a big part of our ability to derive truth.
Defamation, along with obscenity and inciting panic or violence, have never been free speech. Slander and libel are civil crimes that you can be sued for in court, and it's been that way since day one. To facilitate enforcement of defamation laws, the court has decided it's acceptable to try and de-anonymize the poster in question.
Just because the words are about a political candidate, does not make it political speech. This case is not the same as speaking unpopular political views and opinions - that WOULD be protected speech. It's the difference between supporting Nazi idealism (free speech) and accusing someone of being a Nazi (not free speech).
=Smidge=
Nope. According to Times v. Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... it is not a civil offense to make false, defamatory statements about public officials unless you do it with malice, which means that you either knew that it was false or disregarded whether it was true or false. (The Times printed false statements in the advertisement at issue in Times v. Sullivan.) Anyone running for office is a public figure.
People accuse public figures of being Nazis all the time. In the Wall Street Journal comments section, which requires people to use their full names, people accuse Obama and others of being socialists, and sometimes Communists and Nazis. One ongoing debate is over whether Frank Marshall Davis was a Communist, as J. Edgar Hoover and one recent right-wing book said he was. Davis was the unnamed mentor that Obama mentioned in his autobiography.
The rule in civil damages is no harm, no foul. That's the next hurdle. In order to get damages in court, you have to prove that the action caused you damages. John Henry Faulk won a libel suit against Aware, the blacklisting group, because they called him a Communist when he wasn't, and he lost income as a result of being blacklisted.
I haven't seen any evidence that Bill Hadley was harmed by being likened to a pedophile. Hadley is going to try to find someone who will testify that he actually believed the anonymous pedophile accusation, and did something damaging to Hadley as a result.
One of the defenses in a libel case like that would be the "political hyperbole" defense, that nobody took it seriously. That's like the parody defense in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (where Hustler published a parody of a liquor ad which quoted Falwell of saying that his first time was with his mother in the outhouse).
You say "Without anonymity, you can't have free speech."
Really? On what logic is that true? By what historical example is that based? Most (if not all) of the American Revolutionary pamphleteers I have studied proudly signed their names to their work. The Colonial newspaper editorialists signed their names. Without demonstrating the strength of their convictions by courageously identifying themselves, (we mutually pledge our lives fortunes and sacred honor) free speech isn't worth much. You might just as well put a white pointed hood over your face if you lack the courage to identify yourself, and if you do that, your words offer little to any discourse.
You and I must have studied different American Revolutionary pamphleteers. The Federalist Papers were anonymous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...