Amy, not a lawyer here, but I seem to remember that a celebrity or politician does not hold the same reasonable expectation for defamation of charachter suits as a private citizen.

Defamation is not the same for a public figure (which includes politicians).

I read this story the other day. I don't like the type of legal precedence this sets up for future case law. This could create a small window for politicians being able to use her court case as precedence to step on freedom of speech.

I don't agree with this ruling. Sorry that some degenerate feels it necessary to degrade another human in that fashion, but it's not worth my freedom of speech. She should get tougher skin or get out of the public eye.

I think this is a terrible decision, and I very much want to know why Google didn't appeal it. The judge should be tossed into the streets.

Free Speech loses lots when we start putting caveats on it. You have free speech, but you can't say this. Or that. Or that either.

We are not lawyers, and we shouldn't need lawyers to vet our every statement.

Whoring? I'm a code whore. I'll work on any crappy shitty boring project in return for money. I know lots of whores. That's not defamation, that's critique.

The EFF has more to say on anonymity and it's special role in US History:

http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity

Free speech has always had limits. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

And while defamation, libel, and slander are treated differently between the common citizen & the national celebrity, the chief reason for this difference is the spread & impact. A major newspaper that lies about a celebrity will be successfully sued, because that major paper defamed or libelously maligned that celebrity to millions. An ordinary citizen talking smack in a deli doesn't have the same impact.

However now that we have the advent of the internet, we all have the potential to reach millions, and our words remain behind long after we've forgotten about them.

So I think there may be some legitimate basis for this. I don't think free speech is in any significant danger from that ruling.

However, there are other hazards to free speech that are significant, such as the occasional "hate speech" propositions put forth at varying levels of government.

I have to say that I don't fully agree with this either. It would be one thing if this anonymous woman was threatening her or something like that. This could be the first step through a very dangerous door. And on the other side are days when it will be illegal to even say that (insert sports team) sucks or when you say that (insert sports team) are the greatest you will be sued by that team's opponents.

Mean while full on hate sites are spewing actual threats to entire classes of people...

"Free speech has always had limits. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater."

This one always ticks me off, because it's not true. You can yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, and you are expected to if there is, indeed, a fire.

Now, I appreciate the degree to which people are expected to know what you mean, but such incomplete bites of the picture are a symptom of sloppy thinking about the law.

Laws are specific - and you do not have to be a lawyer to see that. What you DO have to recognize is what a law IS. It is NOT what you "think should be right".

Let me illustrate. Do you know what a "crime" is?

Again - it's not what you think is wrong. It's an action in violation of a statute. Yes, that means a President or another high government official can do something you hate (like say, "strategery") that flatly is not a crime. There must be a statute to violate.

Now, enforcement of the law is imperfect, like everything else we do, but that doesn't change things. All that does is let you try to cause a "second wrong" by pushing for the law to mean something else.

This is a nation of the offended. What's next? Can I be fined for calling you the legitimate offspring of a happily married couple? Of course - because the public wants the law to do what they say, dammit, and right now, I'm a citizen!

Personal advantage has long been the enemy of good law and law and order itself. It was legal to burn Jews. It is legal for Congress to pass laws regarding religious establishments because, although everyone knows what an establishment is, it's convenient to interpret the Constitution to mean "do what you want so long as you don't favor it". It is legal to have racial quotas when they promote certain races.

And people who think they're getting something over on the system don't think for a moment about having enabled the system to plow them under when it's their turn in the barrel.

This is just a symptom of a nationwide disease: the expectation that government can and will make your life a pleasant cruise.

You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

This example comes from a court case that ruled that it is illegal to distribute anti-war propaganda. Not exactly a shining moment in the history of our country.

In fact it is legal to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There are multiple situations where that is appropriate, for example if there is a fire. For those situations where it is inappropriate, there are remedies other than prior restraint of speech.

I'm willing to accept that unlimited free speech might hypothetically cause harm, but more harm has actually been caused by excessively restricting speech. I do not endorse lying, but in our zeal to make it illegal we've created tools that are easy to misuse.

It's absolutely true that a public figure doesn't have the same deal as a private person, but I don't think you can post blatant lies about a person and get away with it. If you, for example, start posting that so and so celebrity is a car thief. If you say they're ugly, a bad actor, etc., you're within the realm of opinion.

Here's UCLA coming down on free speech as a bully:

http://ow.ly/15LNCc

What the anonymous woman posted looks to me like opinion, not a "lie".

What the anonymous woman posted looks to me like opinion, not a "lie".

Sounds like that to me, too.

Also, the fuckwit who did this clearly lacks much web sophistication. All one needs to do is use a truly anonymous email address and a proxy server and you're untraceable.

Except that there's no such thing. Ask the kids in Iran how well that anonymizer shit is working for them.

I think we draw the First Amendment line on political speech, right? It's pretty much hands-off. But publicly stating that someone is a whore, a drunk, a junkie, or, God forbid, a Lutheran, is clearly libelous.

I don't have any problem with Goggle's choice. You want to say that you THINK I'm thick as a brick, or I'm a stupid liberal? Okay, that's your opinion, no sweat.

You want to publish to the world that I definitely AM a child molesting Sterno drinker with genital warts? See you in court - and you'd better have a boatload of evidence.

> but I don't think you can post blatant
> lies about a person and get away with it

Doesn't the absolute anonymity and opacity of the internet protect expression by allowing it to find its proper weight? Spam promises free viagra and a lower mortgage, but no one demands that these anonymous voices identify themselves.

Except that there's no such thing. Ask the kids in Iran how well that anonymizer shit is working for them.

I thought most of them were using phones.

I have never heard of people using sophisticated tools like TOR getting busted. I could be wrong though.

This is not the same as asking a reporter to reveal their source or telling a person you can't say something in the heat of an argument. This woman purposely went on the internet with the intention of humiliating someone. She did not post pictures and stories in the interest of anything other than malicious gossip. It was supposedly set up as a site that would be reporting on many people, but focused on only one.

Gossip columnists can and do get sued for defamation. It is one thing to report a pregnancy that turns out to be false or even to insinuate an affair. If proven wrong, they can be sued for damages. This reminds me of being back in high school and writing the rag books that were sent around anonymously. I never participated. If I have something to say I will say it to your face. It sounds like this blogger had a personal grudge and chose to behave in an infantile way. I do hope an example is made of her.

Celebrities and politicians should have the expectation that news will not always be favorable. That does not mean they should have to tolerate mean spirited personal attacks thrown out on the internet that will never get corrected by people who will never be held accountable.

I think you two are being to simplistic about this, both in terms of human nature and practicalities.

There will always be tongues. (Latin: vulgus, whence vulgar aka the mob, right?)

Why thank you, Amy. I happen to like you too, and as I've said before, love the blog!

A news story regarding this topic popped up right after I posted. The anonymous blogger is now named and claims to the paper that she is "shocked that my right to privacy has been tampered with." She is also "scared" now that her name has been made public and "confused" as to how a judge could allow this.
I would like to start my own blog and call it "Cowardly Hypocrites!" This woman has a giant sized set to be complaining about privacy after what she did. She is also planning legal action that she claims she will take all the way to the Supreme Court. Now please someone tell me what is wrong with this picture!

Amy said: "It's absolutely true that a public figure doesn't have the same deal as a private person, but I don't think you can post blatant lies about a person and get away with it."

Yes, but is calling someone psychotic, soulless and a whore really a lie? Seems to me it was just talking nasty. Consider the role language plays at this point. I don't think that anyone really uses psychotic or soulless literally anymore and the word whore is thrown around so often that third-graders use it comfortably.

I'll say that it doesn't take a clever lawyer or even an above-average one to argue that those aren't lies, those are opinions. On the basis of those words aren't often used to their literal meaning, and more times are being used in their vernacular/exaggerated forms.

I mean, I don't think I can get through a day without saying that someone is crazy. And I certainly can't go shopping without exclaiming that some price is highway robbery. But I'm not actually accusing someone to be a highway robber, and none of my crazy people have been taken for psychiatric treatment at my hollering.

Where do you draw the line between hyperbole and accusation? It seems to me that I do have the right to call someone dirty names all the livelong day so long as I'm not openly threatening them.

And consider the seriousness of the accusation. I can go to the neighbors and tell them that so-and-so masturbates to life-size replicas of glitter-encrusted donkey dick and while that person will be pissed, I don't think the police are really gonna care too much. But if I go to the neighbors and say so-and-so is a rapist, then there's gonna be a more serious reaction.

I disagree with the verdict. Posting unflattering pictures with captions like "whore" and "psychotic" isn't really actionable. Otherwise, we'd have tons of teenagers in court right now.

Q.— Now please someone tell me what is wrong with this picture!

A.— We're next.

By "we're" I mean you and me, people who –under name fragments or nicknames— offer commentary on things that we might not want to be held fully accountable for every freaking moment of every freaking day for the rest of our lives without regard to context.

Kaus had a piece on this once. People should be allowed to have places in their lives where they say things that probably shouldn't be written directly into the constitution. We need a farm system for ideas.

The "fire in the theater" quote is a misquote of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the Schenk case. The Supremes ruled unanimously that it was illegal to protest the draft during World War I because it might hinder recruitment efforts.

Holmes wrote "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."

That was later overtured by Brandenburg, in which the Supremes limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be intended to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. cause a riot).

I don't think anyone's going to go all South Central over a model being disparaged by a disgruntled woman on a blog.

As with everything, intent is key.

If the intent of the "skank" statement is meant as humor or commentary, that's one thing.

But if there's malice, then a whole different set of rules applies.

For instance, if I call Crid a "Stupid pigfucker" on my blog for some comment he made, that's not likely to be actionable.

Unless the entirety of my blog were defamatory claims about Crid. That would go to intent. Were it to be proven to the satisfaction of a jury that my intent was to cause harm to Crid's public persona (and therefore cause a potential loss of revenue from work), then Crid would likely win a cause of action.

Because in any event, it's unlikely that he engages in sexual relations with swine, and I couldn't prove it even if I did believe it.

And in practice, it is remarkable how many of your arguments defeat themselves.

Good point, Brian.

I am not sure how she was able to prove "damages" here. Who cares what some random blogger said and how did that legitimately impact her?

She' needs to "Palin" up! (can you imagine how many lawsuits Palin could file based on this reasoning?)

>> A.— We're next.

BINGO.

The anonymous coward...

FTFY.

Oh, and calling someone who does not accept money for sex a whore is a lie. Soulless and psychotic are opinions. I'd like to see this go to court, since truth is an absolute defence against libel. As NY's last good Senator once stated, "you are entitled to your own opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts."

The accusations were never credible, but it was probably worth pursuing. This sort of behavior could escalate into violence if ignored.

Thanks for the clarification Conan.

I have to say I was a little surprised that several people failed to even grasp the point of the saying, being that you can't shout "fire!" if there is not one.

In any case, the point I was trying to make is that there is no freedom that we posses that is completely without limits.

Free Speech has its limits, we can't legally advocate the violent overthrow of the government, we can't seek to incite a riot, we can't commit libel/slander, without legal reprecussions. Every freedom has its boundaries.

The question we have to ask in these cases is how do we apply them to a reasonable standard.

A public persona you'd think might have a much thicker skin, and just brush aside a snide internet comment. Will it do any good? Probably not. The anonymity of the internet, or the perception of it, is not going away anytime soon.

I don't see it as a big landmark case though, there have already been a number of similar cases, some dating back to the late 90s. (Though most of those relate to corporations)

Ever since Google started working with our government I've disliked them. That and helping places like China censor the internet. I understand that blah blah capitalism, etc., but it really made me lose faith with the company.

I have a TOR bridge set up for Iranians. There doesn't seem to be a problem with IPs being found/shut down.

Gotta say, bad ruling. Blogging will take a hit.
Suppose I am blogging about Powerful Corporation X?
Maybe I am right or wrong--but now I know they can get me, and cause terrible legal bills.
Alkon's rants about Muslims? Suppose someone decides to go after her for hate crime?
I say we always have to error on the side of free speech. That means pornography, satire, hate speech (sadly for the last). Actually this blogger wasn't even in the hate speech category--just nuts about the the minor celeb.
A bad ruling.

I have to say I was a little surprised that several people failed to even grasp the point of the saying, being that you can't shout "fire!" if there is not one.

The point of "You can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theater" is "It's OK for the government to censor speech it doesn't like." I disagree. It's not OK.

we can't legally advocate the violent overthrow of the government

And yet, that's what Free Speech is all about. The people who drafted the First Amendment had, just a few years earlier, violently overthrown the government.

An essential component of freedom of political speech is the freedom to speak anonymously. Anonymity protects the speaker against intimidation. Cases like this, by reducing anonymity, reduce our freedom to someday speak against someone who would do us harm. The benefits to society of anonymous speech outweigh the cost of the occasional libel against a celebrity.

It's my understanding that in order for a statement to be libelous, it must meet three tests: (1) it must be a statement of fact; that is, something that can be proven true or false. (2) it must be provably false. (3) it must be defamatory; that is, something that harms the target in some way.

Yes, the commenter in this case was a cowardly hypocrite. But there's no law against being a cowardly hypocrite. (If there was, most of Congress would be in jail now.) Nor is "humiliation" in itself actionable; and anyway, you want to watch that because that's the excuse the Islamists use to shut down any speech they don't like.

Under the standards that I'm aware of, I don't think any of the statments in the clip that Amy quoted would be actionable. Courts have long recognized that people will use words like "psychotic" or "whore" in a colloquial sense; in that sense, the statement is one of opinion since the meaning of the words in the colloquial sense can't be precisely defined. There isn't anything there can be either proved or disproved. (Exactly what are the standards of evidence for proving that someone is or isn't a skank?)

Lots of people like to point to Carol Burnett's successful lawsuit against the National Enquirer back in the '70s. However, in that case, they didn't just call her a drunk. They stated that she was drunk and did specific drunken things at a specific restraunt on a specific date. These are statements of fact. Burnett was able to show through photographic and witness evidence that several of the statements were provably false, and she won a big judgement. (BTW, to outfits like the Enquirer, paying libel judgements is just part of the cost of doing business.) Had they simply printed that in their opinion, Carol Burnett is a drunken slut, it would have been desipcable but not actionable.

Our hostess Amy gets called bad names all of the time, and I don't see her sueing people left and right.

Stacy:

Ever since Google started working with our government I've disliked them. That and helping places like China censor the internet.

So working with China and Iran was bad, but working with the US government was the last straw, eh?

Nice sense of perspective you got there.

Bad ruling? Really? Before making that assertion, I urge you to point me to the statute guaranteeing blog commenters a right of anonymity. That's all that was decided here. No libel suit has been decided by a jury; no damages awarded. Let's not put the cart before the horse and declare the internet dead as a realm of free thought and expression. Or put another way - do you believe you have an absolute right to anonymously procure a PO Box? If you say "yes," think about what a criminal could do with such impunity. Its just immature thinking. Very much akin to the "outrage" expressed at the million dollar verdict against illegal file swapper college students. Stealing is stealing. Just because you did it on the internet with funny pseudonym doesn't mean you can't steal/defame/or otherwise injure somebody. And that somebody has every right to pursue redress.

That said, we'll leave it to the jury to decide whether or not the commenter actually injured the blogger with her statements.

And as to this: "Spam promises free viagra and a lower mortgage, but no one demands that these anonymous voices identify themselves."

*Technically, the FTC has authority to pursue any such fraudulent advertising. Whether they can do so effectively against a fucking tsunami of spam that is only partly generated within their jurisdiction is another story.

do you believe you have an absolute right to anonymously procure a PO Box? If you say "yes," think about what a criminal could do with such impunity.

So I should have my life made more complicated because someone else might do something wrong?

Apparently the bulk of legislators agree with you because I gotta go through a bunch of bullshit to buy Sudafed, and meth use hasn't dropped a bit.

I have litigated tort claims for defamation. In this lawyer's opinion, not everything said is actionable, but "whore" steps over the line. The law specifically protects assaults on a woman's chastity. In addition, accusing someone of being a "whore" (technically, a woman who is paid for sex) is accusing them of criminal behavior, which is also defamatory.

So, an action would be legally justified. Whether it would succeed, and the level of damages, are separate considerations.

"So I should have my life made more complicated because someone else might do something wrong?"

I would argue that practically every law on the books boils down to this very balancing act.

"I urge you to point me to the statute guaranteeing blog commenters a right of anonymity."

But breaking that anonymity required a search warrant, and the Fourth Amendment says that search warrants may not be issued gratuitiously. People often ask where the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy. It's true that you won't find tha phrase in the Constitution. But the Fourth Amendment limits the circumstances under which the government may force information, including the identity of an anonymous blog poster, to be revealed. The government does not have the authority to force privately held information to be revealed simply because someone somewhere is curious or doesn't like it.

(from Brian)
Stacy:
Ever since Google started working with our government I've disliked them. That and helping places like China censor the internet.

So working with China and Iran was bad, but working with the US government was the last straw, eh?

Nice sense of perspective you got there.
_______________

Well, after I found out that they were working with China, I had an opportunity to work at the Google head office, which I didn't take. I misstated myself in saying that it wasn't until they worked with the government that I disliked them, it did however further increase my dislike. It's like going from a idealistic problem to one that will specifically affect you personally. One isn't specifically worse, but you feel it differently.

"The government does not have the authority to force privately held information to be revealed simply because someone somewhere is curious or doesn't like it."

I don't think we're disagreeing, CD. Breaking that anonymity DOES require a search warrant (if you're being investigated criminally) OR a court-sanctioned discovery request (if you are a litigating party-in-interest). In the former, a judge has to agree that probably cause exists to issue the warrant. The latter (like the case here) requires a litigant to put forth a significant investment of time and resources to file a lawsuit AND an opposing party will always have an opportunity to contest the relevancy of the information prior to release.

Here, of course, the identity of an alleged defamer is perfectly relevant to a defamation action. So what's the problem?

> the identity of an alleged defamer
> is perfectly relevant to a
> defamation action. So what's
> the problem?

The defamation in this case is trivial.

Calling a person who's celebrity-famous –or who aspires to that kind of fame– a 'skank ho' or what-have-you is not the kind of violation for which these remedies were constructed. In 1987, at a water cooler in your dad's workplace, someone probably said that 'Joan Collins dresses like a slut'. Or something.

Isn't that the point? Do people in the brightest but shallowest light of fame deserve to be only admired and never critiqued? Why should they? Saying Joan Collin's hairdo is slutty or Madonna's new outfit looks to clownish or Russel Crowe's getting fat is exactly the function those people are supposed to perform in our lives.

Sorry for missing this earlier---

> *Technically, the FTC has authority
> to pursue any such fraudulent
> advertising. Whether they can
> do so effectively against a
> fucking tsunami of spam

Well, and I mean this with no disrespect, you answered that like a lawyer... A guy who might want an enforcement job someday! I'm saying that these cheapjack communications –spam and mockery of fashion figures– are things that people want in their lives. If not, they wouldn't use the communication channels which harbor them. People love their cheesy media. (Trust me on this, it's paying for my home.)

To say the FTC/whomever lacks 'resources' to fight these things more aggressively seems to cheat the truth: The taxpayers who support them don't want them to.

I'm going to ask Amy to let me, for a moderate annual fee, maintain a 'theme page' here on her blog. One of my themes (stolen from Paglia and others) is that the cattiness of the tabloids performs an absolutely essential function in the Hollywood ecosystem. To think that a Brad Pitt or a Julia Roberts could live a life of unalloyed comfort and pleasure would be intolerable. Even when these people are beloved, some utility in the machinery must show them being arrested and being betrayed and being mocked... Or at the very, very least, getting old.

The cattiness formerly reserved for tabloid journalism is now moving to the internet, where it's composed by people who feel it more deeply than the pros, anyway.

Ok by me... You?

Seems to me that there is a huge difference between saying that you think Joan Collins dresses like a slut and setting up a blog with the intention of spreading malicious lies that have the potential to interfere with someone's life and career. And again, just for shits and giggles, this blogger is now complaining about the invasion to her privacy. Maybe karma is a bitch!

> Where comments stop being opinion
> -- "whoring" -- is where the line
> is drawn.

That would be true if only it were true.

> there is a huge difference between
> saying that you think Joan Collins
> dresses like a slut and setting up
> a blog with the intention of
> spreading malicious lies

She's not 'spreading malicious lies'. A malicious lie would be if a commenter clearly identified his or her self and said "Last weekend, Amy's pop singer Jules had sex for money with actor Edgar in the alley behind the 7-11, breaking his wife's heart and humiliating her own children." It's a little different when an anonymous person says "I bet Juls blew Eddie after that party."

This guy says terrible things about people with no lawsuits. (At this hour: 'Birthday sluts'.) Why shouldn't he? He's a transparently naive kid having some fun.

Crid -

"Slut" v. "Whore" v. "General Cattiness" = issues of fact to be determined at trial. No per se rules here.

As for anti-spam legislation, I agree that its a phenomenal waste of time and resources (and like you imply, at least a little hypocritical). For some reason, though, its an easy salve for voters.

>>"Cattiness? Fine. Lying? No. Where comments stop being opinion -- "whoring" -- is where the line is drawn."

And I'll respectfully argue against that. I think that the word "whore", thanks to greater usage, is no longer supposed to be taken literally. In the last ten years, I think that word's colloquial meaning has degenerated from "person who accepts money in exchange for sex" to "someone worse than a slut". I don't see any reason to believe the commenter is really accusing the subject of prostitution, it seems that its more of "what's a word worse than slut" type of comment.

Now, I do believe this is a recent change in our collective vocabulary, as I see it used so loosely mostly in people my own age (twenties and early thirties), but I think that has to be taken into account when you say that the commenter is lying/defaming/libeling the subject. I think that if the commenter had used the word "prostitute", I would be more inclined to agree with Amy on this one.

Seriously, I know people that use the term "whore" in relation to themselves that has nothing to do with sex. Just today I was reading about "famewhores" on two separate sites.

Snakeman, I guess I don't really know how this works in tort law. If I go to a court and tell them, "I want to sue person X, and to do it I need this piece of information that person Y has concerning person X", is there any requirement for me to show that my lawsuit has a reasonable chance of winning? Or can I have the info simply by making a discovery request? I guess if person Y doesn't want me to have the information, they can contest the discovery motion. But can person X? Given that the info is about person X, do they have any standing in a discovery proceeding against person Y?