Judge Orders Troll Exposure

[drkitten]

First rule of holes, Chucky,.... when you find yourself in one, stop digging.

I'm trying to point out that simply because one criticizes there are sometimes good reasons for anonymity.

"Criticism" isn't libel.

Actually I brought up the point about slander and even there it could be in the eye of the beholder, such as mentioning crimes someone had indulged in.

That's not all "in the eye of the beholder." Accusing someone of criminal conduct is, under law, defamatory per se. If you're going to accuse someone of "indulging in" a crime, you should expect to face a libel suit for it, and I'd suggest you include links to proof when you make that post if you want to preserve your anonymity.

In my hypothetical the whistleblower would likely face a court in their country if exposed, one that might engage in cruel and unusual punishment if we expose peole simply on the basis of trolling or criticizing.

Must I repeat that neither trolling nor criticizing is illegal, and that no judge will issue a subpoena on that basis?

 

[drkitten]

Did you read the article or the second post in this thread (my post)?

I did. I also don't trust the media to get details of legal filings right, any more than I trust it to get details of scientific findings right.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

This is not simply a case of them asking for your registration info. Any dummy can fill out registration info inaccurately and just use a throw away email address to get the activation link. They want your ip address and will force the isp to hand over your full name and address. This is generally not info people expect or want to be exposed just from posting comments on a website.

They can only get your ISP to turn over your personal information by a subpoena. This ruling didn't affect that process at all. It only concerned what the news media have to turn over.

Again, under what legal grounds do you think this ruling will be overturned?

The only place I can see a reasonable expectation of privacy (your contract with your ISP) isn't what this decision was about. This decision concerned the question of whether or not the information the news media have is protected by the Indiana journalist shield law. That law was written to protect journalists from having to reveal the names of their sources of news stories.

I'd say it was a stretch to apply that law to this information to begin with.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with free speech as no one is saying that people can't exercise whatever right to free speech they have in that state. From my understanding of the article all that the judge has done is decided that the law that protects a journalist from being forced to reveal their sources doesn't apply to comments made online by non-journalists just because it is on a newspaper's site. Seems quite sensible to me!

Exactly!

 

[PhantomWolf]

Maybe this is just a poor summary by the author, but why is Mr. Miller seeking to include those who merely criticized him? Are we at the point where all public criticism is, by default, defamation?

I suspect that it may be bad summary by the author. CornGod George tried to sue for what was actually criticisim and that was kicked to the curb pretty quick by the courts. It is up to the Plantiff to show that what was written falls under the terms of defamation, and I'd assume that for the court to have gone this far there has to be something to it, at least at face value.

 

[bignickel]

I suspect that it may be bad summary by the author. CornGod George tried to sue for what was actually criticisim and that was kicked to the curb pretty quick by the courts. It is up to the Plantiff to show that what was written falls under the terms of defamation, and I'd assume that for the court to have gone this far there has to be something to it, at least at face value.

Can someone post a link to corngod's thread's? I've been trying to use the search feature, but can't find any.

 

[leftysergeant]

To put this in perspective, would it be wrong to require Killtown to identify himself publicly?

 

[Dorian Gray]

I disagree, what gives you the right to hide behind anonymity to slander someone?

Now I'm not saying this Plaintiff has a case as far as slander goes, but just because you can hide behind a username or not even that doesn't mean that you should be able to publish lies, and even damaging lies, without the person that is being defamed having the ability to seek redress.

Putting it bluntly, saying nasty and untrue things publically about someone while hiding your face is cowardly and little more then petty spitefulness. I agree with the Judge that it's just a form of cyber bulling and people doing need to be shown that it is even less acceptable than doing the same thing after growing a pair and defaming someone openly.

The paper should have deleted the comments as soon as they were made.

Is PhantomWolf your real name? No? And you're not even slandering anyone. Not so hard to understand now, huh.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Is PhantomWolf your real name? No? And you're not even slandering anyone. Not so hard to understand now, huh.

It has nothing to do with using a nickname on the web, it's using that nickname to allow you to attack other people from a position of anonymity and expecting that you shouldn't be made legally liable for your actions done behind that nickname.

If I was defaming people then I'd expect that a court would be willing to tell the board and my ISP to release my details, and if someone was slandering me I'd expect that a court would effect a subpoena to allow me to get their details for legal action.

Hiding behind a nick on the net doesn't give you carte blanche to break the law.

 

[Beerina]

I'm gonna cut this right down the middle.

Nobody has the right not to be offended.
But, if you're going to criticize in a public forum, then your identitiy needs to be divulged. (I'm working on articulating why I feel this way.)

Does it? Anonymity is useful to reveal truths precisely so those embarrassed cannot go after you.

Offsetting this is the ability to lie about people and get away with it using the exact same protections.



So...which is more important in the long run? Does forcing a reveal impact legitimate uses of anonymity?

And if the law is to protect the revelation of anonymous sources (is it?) then, barring specific instruction otherwise from the legislature, I would submit these posters are protected.

 

[Chucky]

"Criticism" isn't libel.

Agreed. That was my point about C. Felix's position.

That's not all "in the eye of the beholder." Accusing someone of criminal conduct is, under law, defamatory per se. If you're going to accuse someone of "indulging in" a crime, you should expect to face a libel suit for it, and I'd suggest you include links to proof when you make that post if you want to preserve your anonymity.

In my example the person making the claim does not live in the US or wherever the comment is being published. They would be covertly publishing comments in western electronic media. They would not be facing libel suits here. The slander accusations would simply be a means for agents of his country, trying to gain access to whoever is making these comments, to have way to have this individual revealed in by western courts. The agents aren't acutally interested in a libel suit. They are interested in finding that persons identity so that they can jail them indefinitely and beat the crap out them regularly or kill them. And the poster may not have links to actions that they know of which their press hasn't covered - it may be a way of exposing someone without actually owning a blog or such. I'm suggesting that for those opposed to whistle blowers - and they could be domestic whistle blowers as well - this might provide far too easy a tool to remove anonymity where in some cases it is warranted.

Must I repeat that neither trolling nor criticizing is illegal, and that no judge will issue a subpoena on that basis?

Again I agree with you on this.

The question I've been inquiring about is if someone is trying to remove someone's anonymity could they have new tools to do that where anonymity is very important? If there were comments that look as might be arguably considered slander by a judge, how little would it take to remove that cloak of invisibility?

I am considering the slander accusation to be spurious with the accuser not even having an intention to follow it though in court because that is not their objective. They only want to reveal an identity at which point the damage would be done.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The question I've been inquiring about is if someone is trying to remove someone's anonymity could they have new tools to do that where anonymity is very important?

Not based on this ruling, anyway. Again, this ruling just said that the Indiana Shield Law which protects journalists from having to reveal the names of their sources doesn't protect a news website from having to turn over identifying information about people who register to post comments on their stories. (There's no honest way you can construe these commenters as "sources".)

If there were comments that look as might be arguably considered slander by a judge, how little would it take to remove that cloak of invisibility?

I imagine it would just take a subpoena.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

And if the law is to protect the revelation of anonymous sources (is it?) then, barring specific instruction otherwise from the legislature, I would submit these posters are protected.

The law protects journalists from having to reveal their sources.

Reader comments to news stories aren't journalists' sources.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

The only place I can see a reasonable expectation of privacy (your contract with your ISP) isn't what this decision was about. ...snip...

I know in the pages of T&Cs for my ISP they made it quite clear that there is no expectation of privacy and that I agree not to use their services to libel or defame or otherwise conduct criminal acts and so on.

Of course most of us never read the fine print!

 

[drkitten]

In my example the person making the claim does not live in the US or wherever the comment is being published. They would be covertly publishing comments in western electronic media. They would not be facing libel suits here. The slander accusations would simply be a means for agents of his country, trying to gain access to whoever is making these comments, to have way to have this individual revealed in by western courts.

Then they won't get the access they want.

The only way to get that access is via a court subpoena issued as part of a libel trial (or other trial, if they can find other illegal conduct to use as the basis of a suit.

The only way that the court will issue such a subpoena is if the agents can show that they have a reasonable chance of prevailing in such a suit -- i.e. that the conduct complained of is in fact illegal under US law.

I'm suggesting that for those opposed to whistle blowers - and they could be domestic whistle blowers as well - this might provide far too easy a tool to remove anonymity where in some cases it is warranted.

Yes. And I'm telling you that your "suggestion" is ill-founded, unrealistic, and paranoiac.

The question I've been inquiring about is if someone is trying to remove someone's anonymity could they have new tools to do that where anonymity is very important? If there were comments that look as might be arguably considered slander by a judge, how little would it take to remove that cloak of invisibility?

A subpoena. If you engage in what looks to a judge to be illegal conduct, you are no longer protected by the law from the consequences of your conduct. Duh.

I am considering the slander accusation to be spurious

If, however, the slander accusation is (or appears to be) spurious, then the court will not issue the subpoena. So the only way to get that subpoena is by having genuinely illegal conduct to complain of.

And criticism isn't illegal.