Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity 249
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."
Serving the summons? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's Libel (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't see how this could move forward unless the identities are revealed. How else are you going to serve a summons to "LawGuy69" and "LegallyBlonde11111one"? The laws regarding serving summons are pretty explicit.
From what the article said, there's a clear case of libel here. The remarks were untrue, malicious and there's considerable damage. It's surprising that people would take an internet forum attack seriously, but lawyers are slow learners. If the people responsible for that little fuck fest are unmasked, they are going to be made to pay. In cases like this, the damage is what counts even if it now looks foolish.
The unmasking should be easy, if StanfordTroll and friends really are law students. I doubt they have a botnet, so they should be easy enough to root out from records the ISPs keep. If they are not really students or are more sophisticated than average, there's a more interesting story here. I would not put it past either political party to engage in these kinds of attacks for political ends.
The rub is not the burning of the trolls but the lack of anonymity for whistle blowers and others actually reporting news that might embarrass the powers that be.
Why would law firms read this stuff anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone please explain to me why allegedly prestigious law firms would use anonymous and clearly libelous postings as any sort of basis to decide whether to employ someone? Especially when many of the comments appear to be unrelated to legal ability (breast size, sexual orientation etc).
Surely, if these women are indeed excellent graduates, they will have completely non-anonymous references from prestigious law professors saying so. Why would a potential employer need anything else.
Perhaps this problem could best be solved by some sort of automated system which publishes random derogatory comments about all law graduates. Then, these law firms would not be able to employ any new graduates and would eventually go out of business!!
Un-moderated board flame war.. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the new day, insulting comments have greater than a 15 mile range and are still there days/weeks/months later. It's harder to catch the abuser and the damage is greater. The AC bully is still with us. IP logging helps some.
There is a disconnect from the abuser and the victem. The victem sees just the grafiti on the forum and does not have the advantage of the raw transmission to obtain the source data such as login info and IP address. That is why that abuse info has to be required from the site owner if it was ever logged.
Online humiliation of posting an abusers IP address doesn't have the same impact as announcing a radio abuser's street address. I had more than one online radio bully call my DF bluff and had the misfortune to find out I wasn't bluffing. When that realisation became clear, he tried keying on the top of me. I was very patient and simply re-broadcast when he un-keyed. After 40 minutes, he went silent in defeat.
Unfortunately, the only way to clean up the mess is either moderation, or validation. Un-moderated forum space permitting anonymous posting is a bully's paridise. A flame war can quickly fry the place. It has spilled into the legal system. I don't post on un-moderated boards.
you're confused (Score:4, Interesting)
therefore, all that is important is the speech we make. who we "are" is no more, or ess, than the words we say. i kind of like this idea: a complete meritocracy of ideas. attaching my speech or your speech to an "identity" won't make it any more or less responsible. so the line in the sand that you are drawing is a red herring: there is no public toilet posting board versus philosopher's lounge posting board. all posting boards are pretty much a special combination of interstate rest stop and town square tha toyu find on the internet. go ahead and view this thread with the cutoff point of -1 for posts. cheek to jowl with some high level intellignet and witty comments, you will find the most utterly retarded and ignorant asocial negative bullshit
in other words, welcome to the internet. you should try to familiarize yourself a little more with your chosen subject matter. there is no such thing as an identity on the internet. it's all without accountability and recourse. which makes it truly free speech
free speech brings out the good the bad and the ugly in human nature. so rather than some rather naive and idealistic individuals expecting that all human speech somehow become only good on the internet, maybe instead some of you, like these litigious law students, need to develop a higher level of tolerance to simple pointlessly negative and useless juvenile snark. it's not going away, no matter what you do. so just get used to it
using your analogy, when you use a rest stop on the highway, and you see the retarded commentary on the walls, does it devastate you? emotionally damage you? no. you just roll your eyes and forget about it 10 seconds later. so why would the snarky juvenile idiocy damage you on the internet?
Re:From TFA: (Score:5, Interesting)
If you started slandering me in public, I can identify at least which physical person is doing so, and probably get a police officer to tell you to quit disturbing the peace.
Not the point. The point is that you can be apprehended - a body can be associated with its speech. Posting anonymously on the Internet is more like leaving a boom box with a slanderous recording in the public square: while the speaker may ultimately be identified, it's immeasurably harder.
You must have been watching a "Jeeves and Wooster" marathon.
Sorry, but you're just plain wrong. Unless you go to greater lengths to concel the place from where you're posting, the FBI or Secret Service can certainly find you from an anonymous post if you're noticed and deemed a possible threat worth investigating.
I wonder how much time you must spend on the Internet to be unable to recognize the differences between a physical and an online presence?Re:It's Libel (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, note paragraph 13 of the complaint: "...Posters can adopt multiple user names and, if they so desire, attempt to maintain several identities simultaneously on the AutoAdmit website." The plaintiffs might be preparing to subpoena AutoAdmit's ISP and then subpoena the computer of every male student at Yale Law School (the defendants' school) who has used the site.
Re:Serving the summons? (Score:1, Interesting)
And conspiracy can bring you freedom and democracy, such as when the colonists conspired to rebell against the British colonial overlords. If the rebels didn't have the privacy they needed to meet in private and hatch their plans, we might still be under British control in the U.S...
Cosmic justice - needs volunteer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then figure out who that pseudonym belongs to. Offer a reward of 10 paypal bucks, an i-five, you know - stupid schwagg that should be more than enough to out the guy by his acquaintances, who undoubtedly also think he's an asshole. Confirm it of course, as best as you're able - maybe get a few pics of the guy along with his schedule, a pic of him taking a pic of one of his targets would be funny as hell, and then come back to Slashdot with the results. A "Hall of assholes who post on AutoAdmit".
Guaranteed those dicks will have a hard time getting a job (or staying in law school if some of those comments are to be believed). And it's not really actionable since all you did was tie his anonymous pseudonym to his real name (again, you'd need a really solid source for who he is), and by God, you didn't promise him any such anonymity.
Now I know, we'd all be in trouble if someone did this to us (for example, my own essays on the transcendent joy of seeing goatse...
I just wasted 15 minutes and still have no opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
After reading Jill's own words, seeing what she was exposed to, I understand her frustration. I can't empathize because I'm not female and subjected to constant oogling, but I can sympathize if she feels wronged. Obviously she does because she is suing. Obviously, as a law student, she realizes the consequences and did more than just spout, "IAMNAL, but blah blah blah" like most people would. If she felt scorned, she knows the suit will increse the actions of the unjust. Hence the really vile emails and comments she is now getting. I don't care how bad a person is or isn't, no one deserves to be called "a diseased AIDS infected cum bucket..."
On the other hand, these are just idiots posting on a message board similar to ours. I wish all boards had our moderation (and meta-moderate). Would it stop it? Nah, but I can decide on days with little time to read the meat (read 2+), or on days with not much to do see the "nice rack" comments (reading -1) which of course would make me pull up the pics since I'm def interested in any pics described in that manner
So where does that leave us? A meager attempt by the law to do what's possibly moral in the eyes of a few. We know they got it dead wrong with DMCA, but right with attempted murder. Yes, I picked extremes, but you can see my point. Morally, is it wrong and they should be sued for calling her what they did? I guess if you had to nail me to the wall one way or the other, I'd say I agree with Jill. Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable agreeing with anyone who associates with variations of the word "feminist" but she might also be using it in a different construct/context. The reason I am comfortable is that free speech has responsible constraints. If you disagree, post a very public attack on $cientology with personal info about yourself, and then tell me in 6 months how you feel. I have a feeling you'll think Jill might have a point.
Interesting Question (Score:3, Interesting)
So if a website is purposefully not logging IPs to avoid identifying anonymous posters, and they receive such a notice, does failure to start logging IPs count as failing to preserve material with possible evidentiary value?