[Vision2020] Internet Defamation: Suit Tests Online Anonymity

[Paul Rumelhart]

This disturbs me a bit.  I know people here on the Viz rail against 
anonymity, but this is a mailing list whose topic involves an actual 
geographic location and is thus "local".  That makes a difference to 
me.  I don't post here anonymously, but I don't see why others 
shouldn't.  Of course, people are free to use the fact that someone 
posts anonymously in the formation of their opinions about that person.

Yet, if anonymity crumples on the slightest pretext, then we've got 
severe problems ahead.  There are plenty of people who need to be 
anonymous.  For example:  whistle blowers, abused spouses, citizens of 
an oppressive regime that could be sent to prison or worse for speaking 
their opinions.  It also removes barriers sometimes, meaning that if you 
knew that the person you were conversing with was really a twelve-year 
old or a member of a political party, religion, gender, or ethnicity 
that you didn't like or something, that you would treat their remarks 
differently.  Anonymity removes those crutches, and forces you to form 
opinions of that person based solely on what they have posted.  That can 
be a good thing.  You know, "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog".

Yet, on the other hand, slander, libel and defamation are serious.  I 
just think that anonymity trumps that in forums where people are just 
expressing their opinions.  If they cross the line and start slandering 
people in other areas, such as trying to warn potential employers 
against hiring someone, then they should be held accountable for that.  
If the remarks are limited to the forum in question, then they should be 
left alone (in a legal sense, anyway).  If you don't want to listen to 
them, go find another forum to hang out in.  I would also question why 
any organization would listen to gossip from an anonymous internet 
source and thinks it's real.

I'm also curious how easy they will be able to find the identities of 
these people.  Most are probably just using a simple screen name and 
will be found out easily.  Others may be routing through anonymous 
proxies that could be in other countries, or using something like 
freenet or tor to cover their traces.  These won't be so easy to find.  
Not to mention that ISP logs can be wrong, and it still doesn't do you 
any good if you find out it's a computer in a student lab, or an 
internet cafe.  Even finding the IP of a system at a person's house can 
be suspect, because you don't know who in the household or among their 
acquaintences used the computer, or if someone was wardriving and was 
thus using their open wireless connection.

I've posted "anonymously" on other forums, meaning I used my tag name 
and not my real name, but I haven't tried to hide behind it.  However, I 
haven't had any real reason to.  If I was hiding from some lunatic, or 
if my freedom or my job was threatened, then you bet I'd use the 
anonymity of the internet as a shield.

While they don't say whether or not the two women mentioned post to the 
same board or not, I've dealt with enough forums to suspect that the two 
women in question are at least half the problem.  It's never the nice, 
quiet poster with the well thought-out posts that gets this kind of 
abuse.  It's the ones that have egos the size of Godzilla that think 
that any little questioning of their superiority is tantamount to an 
attack on their very life and who don't hesitate to slander and defame 
those who they accuse of the same behavior.  I've met a few of these 
types of people, and have had my fun poking them with sticks and 
watching them froth at the mouth.  On one forum, my ISP was contacted 
with a threatening letter for doing nothing but stating my opinion in a 
well-reasoned way that did not support the view of the person who sent 
the letter.  I did know, though, that it was a sensitive button for that 
person and went ahead and pushed it anyway.  While that sort of thing 
can be fun, it's unproductive, so I stopped doing that and have moved 
on.  I don't know that that's the case with the ladies mentioned in this 
article, but if it is then the legal concept of "dirty hands" comes to 
mind. 

However, if these two women don't post to the board and were dragged 
into it without their knowledge for no reason that stems from their own 
remarks, then I hope they win because at that point the line had been 
crossed.

Paul

Tim Lohrmann wrote:
> http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1529267420070616?feedType=RSS&rpc=22 
> <http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1529267420070616?feedType=RSS&rpc=22>
>  
>
>
>   U.S. Internet defamation suit tests online anonymity
>
> Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:25AM EDT
> By Jason Szep
> BOSTON (Reuters) - It bills itself as the world's "most prestigious 
> college discussion board," giving a glimpse into law school admissions 
> policies, post-graduate social networking and the hiring practices of 
> major law firms.
> But the AudoAdmit site, widely used by law students for information on 
> schools and firms, is also known as a venue for racist and sexist 
> remarks and career-damaging rumors.
> Now it's at the heart of a defamation lawsuit that legal experts say 
> could test the anonymity of the Internet.
> After facing lewd comments and threats by posters, two women at Yale 
> Law School filed a suit on June 8 in U.S. District Court in New Haven, 
> Connecticut, that includes subpoenas for 28 anonymous users of the 
> site, which has generated more than 7 million posts since 2004.
> According to court documents, a user on the site named "STANFORDtroll" 
> began a thread in 2005 seeking to warn Yale students about one of the 
> women in the suit, entitled "Stupid Bitch to Enter Yale Law." Another 
> threatened to rape and sodomize her, the documents said.
> The plaintiff, a respected Stanford University graduate identified 
> only as "Doe I" in the lawsuit, learned of the Internet attack in the 
> summer of 2005 before moving to Yale in Connecticut. The posts 
> gradually became more menacing.
> Some posts made false claims about her academic record and urged users 
> to warn law firms, or accused her of bribing Yale officials to gain 
> admission and of forming a lesbian relationship with a Yale 
> administrator, the court papers said.
> The plaintiff said she believes the harassing remarks, which lasted 
> nearly two years, cost her an important summer internship. After 
> interviewing with 16 firms, she received only four call-backs and 
> ultimately had zero offers -- a result considered unusual given her 
> qualifications.
> Another woman, identified as Doe II, endured similar attacks. The two, 
> who say they suffered substantial "psychological and economic injury," 
> also sued a former manager of the site because he refused to remove 
> disparaging messages. The manager had cited free-speech protections.
> LIFTING THE MASK
> "The harassment they were subjected to was quite grotesque," said 
> Brian Leiter, a professor at University of Texas Law School. "Any 
> judge who looks at this is going to be really shocked, and 
> particularly shocked because these appear to be law students."
> The suit is being watched closely to see if the posters are unmasked, 
> a step that could make anonymous chat room users more circumspect. It 
> also underlines the growing difficulty of protecting reputations 
> online as the Web is used increasingly to screen prospective employees 
> and romantic partners.
> "They can't hide behind anonymity while they are saying these 
> scurrilous and menacing things," said Eugene Volokh, a professor of 
> law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
> He said the site was not liable under federal protections that are 
> more lenient on Web sites than TV and newspapers. Prosecuting the 
> manager could also be difficult because he did not write the posts, 
> Volokh added. But the anonymous posters look liable and their careers 
> could be jeopardized, he said.
> "This ought to be a warning to be people that if you say things that 
> are not just rude but arguably libelous and potentially threatening 
> and perhaps actionable on those grounds then their identity might be 
> unmasked," he said.
> Finding and identifying the posters -- including one called "The 
> Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah" -- could be tough but is not impossible. 
> The process involves subpoenas issued to Internet Service Providers 
> for records, and then more subpoenas to companies, institutions or 
> people identified on those records.
> "I've said in my blog the most vile posters on that board are two 
> subpoenas away from being outed," said Leiter. "This led to much 
> amusement by the anonymous posters on the board.
> "But they are about to find out that this is how it works."
>
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