Internet Law
A ‘Flood of Cases’ Take Aim at Anonymous Internet Critics
Posted Sep 18, 2009 11:00 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Anonymous comments on newspaper websites and blogs are spurring litigation, although plaintiffs often fail to win defamation awards.
Harvard Law School professor David Ardia, director of the school’s Citizen Media Law Project, tells the Associated Press that such suits are on the upswing. ''We're seeing a flood of cases involving anonymous comments,'' he told the wire service. Such cases often fail, however, because of free speech protections.
In one case, the former dean of Pace Law School, Richard Ottinger, obtained identifying information for a critic who accused him and his wife of paying bribes to obtain a home construction permit. A judge tossed Ottinger’s $1.5 million defamation suit in late August. The court said the case was barred by a New York law limiting defamation suits when people comment on matters of public interest, according to the Online Media Daily.
In another case that got dismissed, a couple sued a newspaper in Ottawa, Ill., in an effort to learn the identity of a commenter who accused them of bribing planning commissioners so they could convert their home into a bed and breakfast. An appeal is pending, according to MyWebTimes.
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Comments
alal
Sep 19, 2009 7:22 AM CST
fancy that—people saying bad things about a law school dean.
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BMF
Sep 23, 2009 1:25 AM CST
Veritas liberat.
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Robert
Sep 23, 2009 5:27 AM CST
A person’s reputation would have to be extremely fragile if to be damaged by an anonymous online post.
Standup comics get insulted and slandered by real live people, and they have to take it. Is he saying that an anonymous post online carries more weight than a random drunk? It has more credibility in an electronic format?
If he does, he’s probably expecting his checks from his recently deceased relatives in Kenya and Hong Kong any day now.
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Michael Palmer
Sep 23, 2009 6:08 AM CST
I fail to understand why so many people seem to have a cavalier attitude about anonymous defamation via the Internet. It simply is not so that the truth protects people from the negative fallout of slanderous speech, among other reasons, because not everyone who reads the slander gets the memo stating that it is untrue.
‘Tis as true now as in the 16th Century:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello, Act II, Scene 3
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Katharine L.
Sep 23, 2009 7:35 AM CST
The question of whether the shield of anonymity granted to all users by the internet is a good thing has not yet been answered. Perhaps it’s time that it is.
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James M. Hartman
Sep 23, 2009 8:45 AM CST
Anonymity is dangerous and , I think, cowardly. If what you have to say is worth saying, then you ought to to be proud of your position. To hide is to raise doubt as to the sincereity of what is said. I endorse comments numbered “4” and “5”.
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7b
Sep 23, 2009 9:34 AM CST
@#6: Silence Dogood (Benjamin Franklin) and Publius (Alexander Hamilton & James Madison) would, I think, disagree strongly.
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Vigo
Sep 23, 2009 11:30 AM CST
Yeah, well you people saying “they need to get thicker skin,” that’s all well and good when the comment is something like “you’re fat and ugly.”
But when its something like “Someone at this salon molested me” on Yelp (case I saw), which turns out to have been written by a rival salon owner, you can watch your whole business go to pot. These cases are gonna keep coming.
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Pangloss0
Sep 23, 2009 12:55 PM CST
Franklin, Hamilton and Madison only defended anonymity in the context of public political discourse and, at that, only because they were coming from an era where the ruling dictator would squelch or eliminate dissenters. There is no basis to think that the Founders would have condoned anonymous defamation. The government has a big enough voice to respond to critics, even defamatory ones; however, individuals have no such protection and should not be burdened with the Hobson’s choice of spending their scant resources to combat defamation, or letting it lie in hopes the harm will be comparatively slight.
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Anonymous
Sep 23, 2009 1:45 PM CST
I think anonymous commenters are dumb.
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Kenton Hutcherson
Sep 23, 2009 2:00 PM CST
Free speech does not entitle you to defame somebody, even if you are anonymous. We all have freedom of action, but that is limited—you can’t hit people, for example. The same is true for defamation. You cannot use your speech to say false and negative things about other people.
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B. McLeod
Sep 23, 2009 4:52 PM CST
So much of the stuff from anonymous posters is just pointless and mean-spirited crap. It might help improve the civility of online discourse if a few of them were hunted down and called to account for some of their remarks.
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Ed Tant
Sep 23, 2009 6:09 PM CST
I am a columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald, the daily paper here in Athens, GA. Though the paper I write for has anonymous comments, I think that such comments often are the realm of cowards and cranks. Unlike Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Paine, today’s anonymous writers face no repression from a tyrannical government. They hide behind their cloaks of anonymity because they don’t have the courage of their convictions. Whistleblowers and unnamed sources have their place in journalism, but online whines are not even in the same league as someone like Daniel Ellsberg, the government employee who courageously made the Pentagon Papers public while risking a prison sentence during the Vietnam war. Most newspapers insist that comments in the print editions should be signed. The same should apply to their online editions. The college paper at the University of Georgia here in Athens has just dropped anonymous comments from its online edition. I hope that other newspapers here and around the nation follow suit. Those who claim to live in “the home of the brave” should “man up” and sign their comments. Anonymous comments belong on bathroom walls. ED TANT, www.edtant.com
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Dr. Peter Venkman
Sep 24, 2009 2:25 AM CST
Anonymous Defamation is still defamation so it should not be allowed to be anonymous.
BUT, if it can’t be defamatory, it doesn’t matter if it’s anonymous.
Prove it can be defamatory, then you can know who said it.
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Publius
Sep 24, 2009 2:27 PM CST
I’m sorry - Was everyone absent the day Constitutional Law was taught in law school? Basic First Amendment doctrine in regard to free speech, free press: Public figures, by inserting themselves into the limelight in regard to issues of public interest, are subject to criticism. Law school dean = public figure. Public figure = open season. Ergo, if you don’t want to be under the public microscope, remain John Q. Private.
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freedo
Sep 25, 2009 8:58 AM CST
wow- a lot of clueless people. “You can’t use your speech to say negative things about people” WOW- in what country????
And the “journalist” whose paper is doing away with the comments- see how that goes for you. There is a reason your papers are all dying- please keep circling the wagons- your circle is getting smaller and smaller.
The bottom line of what is happening- the left is trying to cram heavy handedness down everyone’s throat, and in order to succeed they need to stamp out easy access to mass communication that points out the fallacies of their positions.
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aka Gregor Samsa
Sep 28, 2009 12:22 PM CST
Talley v. California protects anonymous political speech. JD, freedo, and others can continue to be anonymous true believers in their campaign against fallacies of liberalism. Others will discern, distinguish, and analyze. Concerning internet anonymity, in Melvin v. Doe et al., in 2003, the Pennsylvania SCt recognized the constitutional right to anonymous free political speech on the internet. Anonymous free speech with political content dealing with public officials is protected. For speech dealing with public figures, the line will be harder to draw. Was there actual malice? Was the speech false? Certainly a former Law School dean is a public figure when an issue is raised as to whether he or she engaged in bribery to get a building permit. But is the anonymity of the accuser protected when knowing the accuser’s identity might be relevant as to whether the accuser acted with malice when publishing false speech? The form of the media, publication on the internet, should not change the law of free political speech, public comment, and defamation. While I think civility is always desirable, it is not always required. Sometimes a mean-spirited comment is truth. But, false and malicious comments are not protected speech and there is no protection of anonymity to the publisher.
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