Judge Rules To Reveal Anonymous Blogger's Identity Over Insults

Several readers have written to tell us of a ruling in the New York Supreme Court which will allow model Liskula Cohen to find out the identity of an anonymous blogger who posted some of her photos with captions including the words "psychotic," "skank," and "ho." The site was part of Blogger.com, and Google has already complied with a request for the author's IP address and email. "[Cohen's attorney] said that once his legal team tracks the e-mail address to a name, the next step will be to sue Cohen's detractor for defamation. He said he suspected the creator of the blog is an acquaintance of Cohen. The blog has not been operational for months. The unidentified creator of the blog was represented in court by an attorney, Anne Salisbury, who said her client voluntarily took the blog down when Cohen initiated legal action against it. ... the judge quoted a Virginia court that ruled in a similar case that nameless online taunters should be held accountable when their derision crosses a line. 'The protection of the right to communicate anonymously must be balanced against the need to assure that those persons who choose to abuse the opportunities presented by this medium can be made to answer for such transgressions.'"

Not quite "Supreme"

[Ollabelle]

Keep in mind that, in New York, the "New York Supreme Court" is their trial court, and its rulings can be overturned on appeal.

It's people like you that make this a bad ruling

[hamburgler007]

Basically what you are saying is that if I say something insulting and demeaning about someone, and you agree, it is gravy. But if you disagree with me and find it indecent it is a completely different story.

Re:Legislating "Celebrity"

[Seumas]

Yes, news anchor is a public figure. A CEO of a large company is a public figure. A journalist is a public figure. A radio DJ or talk show host is a public figure. A model is a public figure pretty much by definition. Of... you know.. modeling stuff... to the public... to get attention... for a company or product.

She may not be Elle McPhereson, but she's still a model. The same way a radio host is a public figure, even if they're not Howard Stern.

History

[johndiii]

Cohen had her face face slashed in a bar [foxnews.com] a couple of years ago (also here [nypost.com]). My guess would be that this lawsuit was an effort to find out if the same guy was after her again.

There's a little more to this than anonymous insults on the Internet, and in this case it is probably justifiable to reveal the blogger's identity. Ideally, the police would look into it and determine whether or not the blogger is a threat (without making his identity public), but they likely do not have time to investigate anonymous Internet insults.

Re:Was it worth breaking privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to be a know it all works better if you actually know it all.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forum [merriam-webster.com]

Re:Was it worth breaking privacy?

[whoop]

This model was on Good Morning America today, she knew the woman a little bit. Here [go.com] is more of the story.

"Thank God it was her... she's an irrelevant person in my life," Cohen said. "She's just somebody that, whenever I would go out to a restaurant, to a party in New York City ... she was just that girl that was always there."

Re:Was it worth breaking privacy?

[crankyspice]

What possible difference does it make whether the subject is a public figure or not? All are supposed to be equal under the law. Heaven help us if we actually start having separate laws for celebrities.

Too late, we've had a separate legal standard for "celebrities" (public figures) for over forty years, starting with Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967): http://supreme.justia.com/us/388/130/case.html [justia.com]

Re:Was it worth breaking privacy?

[jcnnghm]

There is a good reason that celebrities are treated differently under defamation law, and that is to protect the public's freedom of speech and right to know. The public figure stuff was the Supreme Court's way of balancing the constitution and defamation. The biggest difference between how a public figure and a regular individual are handled with regard to defamation is in the necessary burden of proof. For a public figure, you must prove actual malice, which is basically that the person said something untrue about you, that they knew it was untrue, and purposely said it to harm you. It is similar to the difference between proving negligence,and proving recklessness. Kind of funny seeing people getting worked up over the law upholding freedom of speech.

Re:Legislating "Celebrity"

[Verdatum]

The concept of a Public figure [wikipedia.org] is nothing new. It's a legal term; there is legal precedent used to clearly define it. It's not as blurry a line as you might think.