Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity

The Xoxo Reader writes "Reuters reports that two women at Yale Law School have filed suit for defamation and infliction of emotional distress against an administrator and 28 anonymous posters on AutoAdmit (a.k.a. Xoxohth), a popular law student discussion site. Experts are watching to see if the suit will unmask the posters, who are identified in the complaint only by their pseudonyms. Since AutoAdmit's administrators have previously said that they do not retain IP logs of posters, identifying the defendants may test the limits of the legal system and anonymity on the Internet. So far, one method tried was to post the summons on the message board itself and ask the defendants to step forward. The controversy leading to this lawsuit was previously discussed on Slashdot."

Re:Serving the summons?

[carpe_noctem]

IANAL also, but my father is (well, an attorney, anyways), and I seem to recall that part of getting "served" is that it must be shown that you received your summons. It is fairly common to hear of stories in the legal profession of people trying to dodge getting served, and people serving said papers doing mischevious things to try to pressure their targets to comply.

Posting a summons on an internet message board would probably do a lot to get people's attention (which, IMHO, seems to be kind of the root cause of this case to begin with), but there's no legal way to prove it was read unless the defendants post in thread. Which, even then, sounds rather lame to me..

Re:nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to change the batteries in your joke detector.

Re:What's even more surprising

[jellie]

Why not? We post disparaging remarks about Gates, Ballmer, the RIAA, or whoever we feel like it. Sure, it's a way to express our opinions without having to leave our parents' basement, but what's to say that some of these posts don't have any merit? I looked at the site, and a lot of it is just racist, sexist, whatever-ist crap. If spoken in public, it's probably slander.

For one of the women (I'm not sure if she's one of the plaintiffs or someone else), they apparently posted the Facebook and Flickr pictures, Facebook profile, and other crap about a girl. They also follow girls around, taking pictures of them to post online. I don't know what was said about other women or people of other ethnicities, but I'm sick of reading those threads.

What about a law school that took those trolls seriously [cbs5.com]? And after the person owned up to the bad joke, AutoAdmit told the FBI [autoadmit.com] the identity of the person. Apparently someone posted some comment 2 days after the Virginia Tech shooting, and someone at UC Hastings shut down the school for the day. I'm from SF, though I actually didn't hear about it at the time. The guy edited his comment soon after, yet someone copied and pasted it, and maybe called the school or something (Here's the original thread - I don't feel like linking to their site again: www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=616215&mc=80& forum_id=2#7959514 ). So, essentially, someone posted some threat online and a school was closed. I don't know why they were happy to assist the FBI regarding that case, yet they're hiding behind a shield of "free speech" in this one.

Re:i'ts like a school project for them

[UbuntuDupe]

hey ladies: random pointless negative asocial retards is pretty much par for the course on internet posting boards, especially when done anonymously. if you post with any regularity on the intertubes, you will get trolled, violently and personally. it's a given. it's just hot air from ignorant asocial losers

Or as I say, never attribute to bigotry, what can be explained by misanthropy.

On a more serious note, Dahlia Lithwick on Slate wrote an article [slate.com] that may be of interest here, about how female law students think they are being denied positions based on these postings.

sense

[sethg]

Even if they can't prove that the remarks played a part in their not-being-hired, some of the accusations, like "X has herpes", are pro se libel--meaning that they are so obviously defamatory that the plaintiffs don't have to prove to the court that they caused damage.

Re:It's Libel

[jhjessup]

Clear Case of Libel, eh? Let me go back and check my syllabus outline on this one... Libel = Printed Defamation = Tort = First Year...

"Defamation is a false and defamatory statement which is intentionally or negligently published to third persons, is understood by those third persons as relating to the plaintiff, and is actual and proximate cause of damage to plaintiff's reputation."

According to my outline (based on Prossor and Keaton on Torts and Gilbert's Law Summaries), "Damage" is presumed to exist if plaintiff is 1) accused of a crime, 2) of having a loathsome disease, 3) of being sexually promiscuous, or 4) of doing/being something inconsistent with his or her business (something that incline others to not deal with him in his business).

So, yeah, it looks like there might be a valid action for libel.