Yale Students' Lawsuit Unmasks Anonymous Trolls 668
palegray.net writes "Two female Yale law school students have used the courts to ascertain the identities of otherwise anonymous posters to an Internet forum, with the intent of prosecuting them for hateful remarks left on the boards. At a minimum, the posters' future legal careers are certainly jeopardized by these events. While I'm not certainly not supporting or encouraging hateful speech online, these controversial actions hold potentially far-reaching consequences for Internet privacy policy and free speech." According to the linked Wired Law article, "The women themselves have gone silent, and their lawyers — two of whom are now themselves being sued — are not talking to the press."
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Re::x (Score:5, Funny)
The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Informative)
These comments would not be tolerated in any other setting so why should they be tolerated online?
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Insightful)
People just need to learn that just because you said it on the internet doesn't mean the statement carries no weight.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While I can see your point, I don't think that bringing up a scenario of what you can or cannot do in an airport demonstrates a valid counter point.
I think it addresses both points brought up by the GP. See this quote:
1. There are a lot of women with those names. So this could not be considered a threat against any specific person.
My example statement is not a threat against any specific establishment.
2. It does not say they will be, or imply that they will be. The word "should" implies a statement of opinion, not intent.
My example statement does not state that any crowded place will be bombed, just that it should be.
The example is not specific to an airport, either. You could say such a thing within earshot of just about anyone and be considered threatening.
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:4, Insightful)
What's really, really annoying is that these right-wingers who think it's OK to threaten to rape women because it's "not actually a threat", are probably the VERY SAME people who think that the police should be allowed to arrest someone at an airport for having a suspicious-looking beard and praying in Arabic.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Insightful)
This wouldn't be too bad if potential employers and romantic interests weren't so damn nosey -- imagine kicking ass in a job interview for a good position only to discover that you were turned down because your psychotic, jealous ex with a lot of time on their hands gamed Google(or created a fake MySpace page) and made you out to be a drunk, zoophile, or worse!
Dosen't matter if the incendiary posts were written by people called "HitlerHitlerHitler" and "GoatseFan1" -- the hiring manager may think, "Hmm, he/she sure does have a lot of enemies" or "I'd rather not have all that controversy attached to somebody who works for me." Same applies to potential romantic interests.
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:4, Interesting)
What about the womens' rights to not feel threatened?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No such thing. A woman, or a man, for that matter, has a right not to *be* threatened, and if you believe that statement to be actual threat, that is one thing. But you cannot seriously make us legally responsible for other people's feelings.
Exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
...please be careful with phrases like "womens' rights to not feel threatened."
No one has the right to not feel threatened. Under most circumstances you have the right to not be harmed, and under some circumstances you have the right to not be threatened. But there is a lot of jurisprudence about "true threats" that suggests a threat must be credible (among other things) before you have a right to silence someone or claim damages against them.
I don't know the context of this "threat", not having read the forum in question, but what do these women do when someone says "Fuck you" to them at a party or driving a car? Do they go running for a lawyer? In both cases, the threat would be much more credible than some anonymous net poster.
Exactly... wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know the context of this "threat", not having read the forum in question
There's your first problem - before passing judgment, it would be good to do at least a bit of cursory research.
but what do these women do when someone says "Fuck you" to them at a party or driving a car? Do they go running for a lawyer? In both cases, the threat would be much more credible than some anonymous net poster.
And there's your second problem - in spite of admitting that you've read nothing about this, including apparently the article, you're ready to make ad hominem attacks.
On the off chance you read this, the grandparent poster was wrong - the threats were graphic and specific, listing the girls' names, photos, and class and gym schedules. That becomes a credible threat.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Presumably, the women were as anonymous as the trolls
RTFA
Re:Not disagreeing, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure those two are analogous. Without having reread the case, I seem to recall that the women in question did not seek out the forums in question. Their pictures were put on the board, and then the comments started flying. When they then joined the board, (again, afair) seeking to have the pictures removed, they were then subject to even harsher comments, including the rape ones.
You, on the other hand, have joined the game yourself, and aditionally you have joined the chat, which is an optional extra, of your own volition. Aditionally, while "I'm going to rape you" might be a breach of conduct on Xbox Live (I don't know if this is the case), in most fps' this is the 'norm' where you attempt to psyche out your opponent. No adult of a reasonable mind will expect the speaker to seek out your address (is this even possible through Xbox Live?) and hunt you down.
However, on this board, not only were the women's pictures posted, their names and addresses were posted, and considering the vitriol spewed forth on the boards, even I, being a VERY common sense kind of guy, would not put it beyond the assholes and idiots* on the boards to actually following through on their threats**
Of course, I'm not in any way, shape or form a lawyer or had any law training. Hell, I'm not even from the US.
* In my humble and non-medical/-psychological opinion, since I am not refering to mental retardation
** Considering the writing, the constant agitation by the other posters etc, I do not consider the comments "innocent", "joking", "ironic", "sarcastic" or even "humourous"
Just as important - the court found in favour of the plaintiffs, so obviously the judge (jury?) found the threats to be credible and the derogatory comments to be libel. If you do not like that ruling, you need to write your congressmen and tell them why. Don't email, don't fax. Send them a physical letter, preferably handwritten. At least that's what the usual comments on the subject around here advices.
Re:Not disagreeing, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
This story has been on slashdot a few times. Here's what really happened, if I remember correctly:
- Guys posts pictures of women and comment on the forum (she's a 9! she's a 4! such a bitch i'd rape her! etc.)
- Women ask site owner to remove pictures and offending comments
- Site owner laughs at them, and informs posters that the women in question asked for the pictures to be removed
- Guys don't like it ; they literally start stalking these girls, take more pictures of them (at the gym?), and start posting threats.
- Women sue.
Read this again. These girls got stalked and threatened. I don't care if it's on the internet or elsewhere ; when someone stalks you, takes pictures, and threatens to assault and rape you, it is wrong, and these women have a case. The whole thing about it affecting their career etc was only true at the beginning (the first pictures and comments posted). This thing got a lot more serious afterwards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this points to how anonymity is *usually* used for evil
Really? C'mon... remember that next time you visit that medical web site to ask about that really embarrassing rash. You might want to be anonymous when inquiring about your options on terminating an unwanted pregnancy. You might also enjoy the anonymity when you visit those pr0n sites, when you criticize Scientology, when you're playing Unreal instead of working, when you visit that atheism web-site. When you bare your soul at an AA-type forum, you might not want your name on there. Or maybe you're blowing the whistle on your company's poisoning your town by publishing incriminating documents...
Anonymity on the Internet certainly has its downside, but I think it's one of the major features for why MANY millions of people use the Internet in the first place-- it can is a liberating, empowering experience to participate in open forums, chat rooms, etc. without fear of personal consequence. Yes, people say things that they would not say otherwise including libelous accusations and even threats... but I think the upside FAR outweighs the downside.
Posted anonymously, of course.
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this points to how anonymity is *usually* used for evil, instead of good like most geeks think about it.
One lawsuit can't prove that something is "usually" true or false. What it shows is that in at least 2 cases (one for each of the trolls) anonymity is used for evil. You need a lot more than 2 cases to say that the majority of anonymous people on the internet are using it for evil
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
At the university where I served my sentence as an undergrad, the first time you plugged a computer into the campus network, you would be sent to a walled garden wherein you had to input various ID numbers and passwords.
Once you had done this, the campus network forever associated the MAC of that computer's network adapter with that student. You could plug that computer into any RJ45 jack on campus, and the network would know you and hold you responsible.
If one wanted to dissasociate the MAC from onesself,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whats the EEEEEVVVVIIIIILLLL you can inflict in an internet forum?
Terrorist threats? Exposing personal id-related information of an enemy, such as their SSN, bank account passwords, etc? What about posting where a controversial politician's children play after school?
Re:blaming the wrong person (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Okay, let's do a little experiment here. You must have a female relative or acquaintance somewhere who can get online. Now, send her an email or post on a forum she visits a lot of insults and threaten to assault/rape her. Indicate that you know who she is in real life. See how she reacts.
Now, try to imagine how you'd feel if exactly that happened to a woman you happen to care about, like, say, your mom or a sister. "Idle threats"? Sure, a threat to rape your mom or sister might be idle, but I'd bet you'd take it seriously. I know that if it were me and I found out who he was, I'd want his ass in jail for threatening me with bodily harm. It's little different from a guy calling you and telling you he's coming to your house to rape you. Simply put, it's not a matter of childish threats. It would be pretty damn scary, in fact.
Christ, the number of guys here defending these guys rights to threaten women online makes me wonder how many wannabe-rapists there are on slashdot. If I ever meet any of you in real life, keep in mind that I'm a redneck from the southern US and I will shoot you if you try anything. Yeah, we get a little upset when rape threats start flying around. What did you expect, them (or me) to just giggle and ask if we can get you another beer? Jesus.
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:5, Interesting)
It's my right to sue you for offending me. There are no laws against that, either.
Re:The posters deserve to be unmasked (Score:4, Insightful)
It's your right to be offensive. There are no laws against that.
True. But there are laws against slander, libel, stalking and assault. All of which were, arguably, committed by the posters under an assumption of anonymity. I read a lot of their posts a year or so ago when this hit /. the first time, and these guys were definitely over the line of offensive.
Technicality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hateful speech is not illegal. False claims that substantially harm a person ARE illegal under slander/libel law. This law applies whether the comments are online or on the playground.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Technicality? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's for the court to decide.
Re:Technicality? (Score:4, Insightful)
And people do Google their applicant's names; I do it all the time, even if I'm just trying to find published papers. But I'd sure notice if the first page results are littered with odd stuff like it must be in this case.
Re:Technicality? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, world-wide, we have different laws.
Hateful speech is not illegal.
See R. v. Keegstra [hrcr.org]. In Canada at least, you do not have an unlimited right to free speech, even if you are not targeting a specific person.
tl,dr: Making hateful statements against a particular identifiable group is illegal in Canada.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless of course the "identifiable group" happens to be Muslims and the person making the "hateful statements" in a national publication happens to be a Likudnik Zionist.
Re:Technicality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Making hateful statements against a particular identifiable group is illegal in Canada.
Does it depend on the group? Can I hate lawyers, politicians, and statisticians?
What about pirates, Real Pirates (the board-a-ship-and-kill-people kind), rapists, serial killers, or nazis?
All of those are pretty identifiable groups. Which ones can I explicitly say that I hate? I want to be sure I can get through customs next time...
Re:Technicality? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
"I think I will sodomize her. Repeatedly"
This particular quote does not fall under hate speech (the legality of which varies), but this is a clear threat to physically harm a person. In this case IMHO law enforcement have every right to ascertain the identity of the person so as to better protect his/her potential victims.
If you're not an assclown, your identity on a forum is safe. Nobody is going to pursue your identity in court for calling them "shitface".
Re:Technicality? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were one of 3 blond women in the 8:30 Legal Research class & had someone on the college message board repeatedly saying "I'm going to ass rape the blond bitch in my 8:30 Legal Research class", you would probably take it a bit more seriously than a whiny anime complaint. This wasn't "hey she's got nice tits", these were comments which started out as libel, labeling them 'whores who fucked their way into college', & progressed into threats when they took a stand against the libel.
Libel isn't a protected form of speech under the constitution, neither are threats of physical or mental harm. Being anonymous is fine, using that anonymity to break the law and then whine when people try and find you is stupid.
The guys who posted this crap were over the line, the admin should have handled it - he was a 3rd year law student and should have been able to see that it wasn't protected speech. His waving the 1st amendment flag here is an insult to it's purpose.
I certainly won't lose any sleep over a bunch of frat boy jocks getting bitch slapped over their behavior.
I don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a pretty straightforward bit of libel...Even on the internets you have to be careful if you're explicitly slandering someone by name.
Illegal is illegal, and if these monkeys were dumb enough to put up all this crap under handles that they accessed from their homes, then they're screwed, and it's hard to see how they ought not be.
Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Informative)
From the article and the court documents it appears that the plaintiffs are both "Jane Doe"s. That means that their identity was not explicitly known to everyone (else the Jane Doe ploy makes no sense) and that it is the supposed attacker's identity which is being exposed instead.
The article notes that "the Jane Doe plaintiffs contend that the postings about them became etched into the first page of search engine results on their names," which strongly suggests that the posts included their real names, not just their online handles. If so, then the Jane Doe thing is to further distance their names from the media and search engines.
Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Informative)
I realize I am breaking some kind of Slashdot rule here, but I've googled this further.
On March 9, the Dean of Yale's law school wrote this [ms-jd.org]: "The Washington Post ran a story about several of our students who have been personally targeted on an internet message board. While this message board purports to be about law school and law school admissions, it contains numerous sexist, racist, homophobic and other derogatory comments by anonymous posters. Some of these comments include the names and personal information of our students and other individuals, along with many false and hurtful assertions."
Furthermore, their names are stated clearly in this PDF [wsj.com] of Ciolli's lawsuit against the two women.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
hmm (Score:5, Informative)
2 concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
Internet privacy policy
Expect none
Free Speech
Slander and libel are illegal
Just about covers those two concerns.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For something to be called slander or libel, I think the accuser should have to show at least ONE person who believed it, AND damage done. If they can't, it's just derogatory remarks.
If I said that Chief Justice John Roberts is an arsehole, that's clearly an opinion.
If I said that Roberts has a forked tongue, that is clearly not libel either, because it's rather obvious that he doesn't (in a purely physical sense).
If I said that Roberts has impregnated 74 women, it's not libel
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot sucks (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
AC's name is Dave Bubbleshits & he lives over in the blue house behind the college. He's a dumb bitch-ho who should be raped daily.
There's a huge difference between anonymous flamebait directed at other anonymous people. These guys weren't directing it that way. They were giving specifics, in some cases names. This wasn't your normal trolling, this was cyberstalking & cyberbullying at it's worst. Done in person, it would be bad enough, but 4 years later, those comments are still the first thing anyone - including a prospective employer - sees when they Google these women's names. A libel is definitely called for here.
Daniel Solove... remember him? (Score:3, Interesting)
Think bombs (Score:4, Insightful)
If you leave a bomb anonymously we'd all want you tracked.
Both hate speech and the bomb are an attack. So why not, freedom of speech shouldn't really enter into it unless what is said is true.
So if they posted something true as a judge that would be my requirement. Show me that it is a lie in which case I'll pass the order to bring them to be held accountable. Otherwise if it is truth well pants you can't sue over the truth (can you?)
Besides when was it freedom of anonymous speech?
Total 100% hypocrisy (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's where the hypocrisy comes in.
We know illegal felonious comments (threats of rape and murder) were allowed to remain posted on the website. We know the website administrators (including Ciolli) claim to have allowed those messages to remain posted in order to "protect" freedom of speech of the anonymous defendants. But why is freedom of speech OK in that case, but not OK when the Jane Does bring lawsuit against him? Was it because he suddenly found himself being dragged into the mix? Did he find out it was an awful thing having people making false accusations about him? Did he find out libel is NOT protected by freedom of speech after all?
He got a taste of what it's like to be libeled, slandered, and defamed in a horrid way and then suddenly changed his tune. He wanted to deny the Jane Does the freedom of speech and their freedom to bring lawsuit, but he didn't appear to be concerned about the harm caused by the messages posted by the defendants.
That's hypocrisy.
Re:Total 100% hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
The damage is greatly worsened when you know both the anonymous troll and victim are related in some way geographically or attending the same university. That's when the threats become elevated from stupid trolling to a real threat because the troll has demonstrated he has the desire, ability, and means to carry out that threat. Then consider the troll has the advantage of surprise because the victim has no idea who that person is. It could be a lab partner, a teaching assistant, the person sitting next to her in class. There's no way to know. At this point we're way past harmless trolling. We're in the realm of felony behavior.
There is a very long history of men sexually victimizing women. Idiot trolls, such as these, use that knowledge to magnify the hurtful effects of their threats. It demonstrated they were consciously and willingly performing this behavior. Conscious intent plays a huge factor when determining if something is a crime. It clearly was in this case.
And finally, even if these trolls weren't intending to carry out these threats, one could argue they were acting to recruit others to do it on their behalf. So now the victim has to worry about not one individual, but all individuals.
I'll tell you this: for those women, that situation was a fucking scary place to be in.
Re:Someone fill me in here. (Score:4, Informative)
The reason the article does NOT discuss it further is that they are trying to avoid pulling a "Fox News" where instead of lieing about a person you say "X news agency has reported that person A is in favor of killing all doctors that have committed Abortions".
They are studiously trying to protect the woman that have quite frankly had enough slander published about them and do not need the slanderous statements repeated.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The thread included messages such as, "I think I will sodomize her. Repeatedly" and a reply claiming "she has herpes." The second woman, Jane Doe II, was similarly attacked beginning in January 2007.
Claiming someone has herpes is libel. The "similarly" attacked stuff was a lot worse.
I also am aware of the situation from previous articles about the problem.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Someone fill me in here. (Score:5, Informative)
Keep reading. It gets worse:
I'd say they have a reasonable case here.
Per se libel (Score:4, Informative)
> a reply claiming "she has herpes."
That's per se libel so long as it counts as a "loathsome disease" and identifies a specific person. Which is, per my understanding, the case here.
I thought these were law school students? They're screwed. They have no defense if they can prove who made comments like that.
Re:Someone fill me in here. (Score:5, Insightful)
seriously?
Maybe because she doesn't want her name further associated with scurrilous rumors...
Re:Someone fill me in here. (Score:4, Insightful)
... they have no reasonable grounds to be suing.
If they have no reasonable grounds for suing, then their lawsuit will be rejected by the courts. If they do have a reasonable grounds for suing then the courts will hear their case. Most Slashdotters forget to put IANAL disclaimers in their comments when making legal claims.
Re:Someone fill me in here. (Score:4, Insightful)
You should know by now that IANAL is implied for any post of legal opinion on slashdot. With rare exceptions (Ray Beckerman comes to mind), I'd assume the "IANAL" even if the poster writes "IAAL".
Hell, it's not just legal opinion. I take anything written on slashdot with a grain of salt. If it's a topic I know a good bit about, I can normally figure out if a poster is talking out their ass, or if they might have something to add to my understanding.
If it's a topic I know little about, I don't even bother trying to determine if someone knows what's going on. I figure I'm better off at wikipedia for decent base-level information.
IANAL. Of course.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't mean "reasonable" in the legal sense, I mean in the normal sense of the word. Just based on what I read in TFA, their suit sounds completely unreasonable. That doesn't mean it won't be upheld in court, though.
Granted, but nobody really knows the details of the case just from reading the article, and so I couldn't judge either way. It will (and should) ultimately be left up to the courts. One does have to presume that the courts are "blind" (as in blind justice) and fair, but that is a different issue. Having somebody of the likes of "HitlerHitlerHitler" making statements about rape certainly is dubious and warrants investigation. Their may be stalking and libel issues involved, but that would be for the courts (
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The comment wasn't that "some women should be raped", it was what a reasonable person would construe as saying that the plaintiffs should be raped.
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies are going to great lengths to search for anything particularly incriminating on people that are applying for a job, and when you're starting out in a law firm - where your basically doing bitch work anyway, and your #1 job is fitting in - anything that they could find that could make a person look bad is going to be held against them. No one has any privacy left anymore, so things that used to get passed off as "kids being kids" have long-reaching consequences later in life. I cry for that.
With all that said, no, I don't think that this case sets a good precedent. The fault here is anyone that would listen to anonymous slander and use it against the women in question for any reason.
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally can't wait until the top entry in google on their names will be "got sued by Jane Doe for defamation", together with a link to their highly professional statements. I'm sure it will greatly enhance their careers in the fast food industry.
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm sure the day will come that even fast food joints will check up on their applicants. Just how many places do you think will want to hire someone to work alongside women and serve food to women, when they have repeatedly not only shown themselves to be womenhaters, but actively threatened to rape them repeatedly in the ass?
My guess is "not many".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a post to an online web forum. If anything the people running that forum should be the ones being sued. If the comments were that far out of line they should have been removed by the people running that forum.
People in general need to grow up and realize that not everyone in the world is going to agree with you or like you. Many will even hate you for what ever their reason. That is life, get used to it.
If an online forum can trash your chances of getting your career going, then that speak volumes for
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, yes, freedom of speech DOES and always has meant freedom from consequences. After all, if it doesn't, then what's the opposite? What is "restricted speech" if free speech can mean anything from "you're free to say it, but you may get fired for saying it" right up to, "you're free to say it, but you may be executed by firing squad". Does "restricted speech" mean going around and cutting out people's tongues and chopping off their hands before they say something that might be banned?
Where you're confused is thinking that we actually have or ever had free speech. We're (in America, at least) supposed to be free from governmental consequences, but even that comes with a load of (all stupid) exceptions.
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Informative)
You are absolutely wrong. Freedom of speech means freedom from consequences. If someone will take action against you for saying something, then you aren't free to speak.
The government is legally required to respect your freedom of speech; they cannot fine, imprison, harrass, or otherwise act against you because of something you have said. However, only the government is required to respect your freedom of speech; private people can do whatever they want in response to what you've said, so long as they don't break the law. For example, if you say something that I find offensive, I may refuse to hire or do business with you. I can do this because (a) I could legally have done it even if you had kept quiet, and (b) I am a private person, not part of any government.
In this case, a court has taken action against posters: it has revealed their identities, thus exposing them to harassment and other consequences from private parties. Since the court is a government agency, it can't do that.
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course a court can take action based on speech. What do you think happens in a defamation suit?
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Informative)
This has never been true with using "anonymous forums" on the Internet, really.
For example, someone just recently commented on Craigslist's "Rants & Raves" forum how his brother was paid a visit by "Homeland Security" here in the USA, because he had posted an anonymous comment advocating the shooting of the current president.
Anonymous message forums I've seen and used never gave me a written guarantee that my identity would never be subject to being uncovered if I posted there. They merely function anonymous as a matter of "general practice", subject to the prevailing laws of the land.
IMHO, anyone posting hate speech or directly attacking people by name on an "anonymous" forum should be aware that they better use methods of their own to ensure they can't be traced back by IP address to their whereabouts. Relying on the forum to "shield" them from the law is a risky bet, at best.
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you got it wrong. You can post whatever you want, full stop. Which part of "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" you don't understand?
Every aspect of the Bill of Rights comes with a big ole asterisk. (Freedom of Speech/*Hate Speech, Right to Bear Arms/*Fully Automatics, etc. etc.)
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hate speech is fully protected speech, unless uttered in a way as to provoke immediate violence (and even then, it's not the speech per se, but the intent to incite violence, that is the crime). Fully automatic weapons would have been protected by the second amendment in any rational world, since the context is clearly the right to bear military arms.
The big ole asterisks are flagrant violations of the constitution, not exceptions to it.
If we don't want people walking down the street with AK-47s and RPG7s and surface-to-air missiles, we should amend the constitution, not pretend it doesn't say what it obviously says.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"unless uttered in a way as to provoke immediate violence "
Which is exactly why it should always be protected.
As soon as an argument starts, someone says what the other person said is hate speech to get off the hook of attacking them.
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Insightful)
All bans on weapons(guns or otherwise) have done throughout history is create a victim society, mainly due to the fact that the people they are trying to keep from getting said weapons will have them anyways. They aren't going to care that they aren't supposed to have them.
This part I would call "wishful thinking". Allowing weapons to everyone has never minimized the number of victims. Theories saying that it should do so have been brought forward several times, and some of them actually sound pretty logical. But they all have collided with that strange thing named "reality" and crashed badly.
Thomas Jefferson's advice on use of the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is their right to freedom of speech being violated? They're not being censored. As noted above, freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences, but you seem to be ignoring that and saying it does.
And you just insulted them. I think you're proving their point. you seem to think you can hide behind anonymity
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anonymity can be used to prevent otherwise unlawful repercussions. It doesn't much matter that Congress makes no law if the moment you blow the whistle on the local police department, you get indefinitely harassed with bogus, trumped up charges.
Anonymity can be an important part of free speech. The line between it being necessary and harassment is very fine, indeed. Usually, it depends upon who the speaker is talking about.
In order to claim slander, there are two prerequisites: first, the allegations must be false, second, someone must believe the allegations to be true. Unless they can prove there is someone somewhere stupid enough to believe in anonymous posts they read on the internet, there are no consequences to that trolling.
That's oversimplifying to a huge degree.
First of all, there are slightly different laws in different states. I'm not sure what the laws in this case are. If they are as you say, then fine, ignore the rest of this post.
A defamation claim can be made for just about any reason. If someone says something negative about you, you can take them to court for it. You've laid out the common defenses to a defamation claim--if it's the truth, in the US, you'll probably lose the case. If it's not true, generally, you have to prove that there was malicious intent. Believability is only one aspect of malicious intent. A statement could be slanderous without being believable ("Jane Doe kills puppies for Satan!"). Of course, if you are a celebrity, you have a higher burden of proof. Now, the alleged slanderer must have knowingly lied. If the guy heard from another guy that I (a celebrity) fucked a goat, and they publish it, I probably won't win the suit.
One of the most common defenses against such suits is that the person was stating an opinion. That's a whole separate can of worms. It's all really quite complicated.
In this case, it sounds like the trolls were making statements with the intent to defame competition, so that the trolls would get opportunities that these Jane Does would otherwise have received. I have no doubt that the Janes will win, unless the trolls made it quite clear that they were expressing opinion, and weren't attempting to state facts about the Janes.
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Insightful)
Libel != freedom of speech.
If you damage someone because you knowingly made false statements about them, they can sue for compensation of those damages.
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
No one has any privacy left anymore
Privacy starts at home, kids. If you don't want a future employer seeing pictures of you drunk and naked at a frat party, don't put them on the internet!
Seriously, the biggest privacy problem we have these days is people thinking that everything is private unless they explicitly make it public, but reality doesn't work that way. Nobody goes walking down the street naked, then claims their privacy was violated when people looked at them. Well, the internet is no different. If you want something on the internet kept private, you have to make it private, otherwise it's public.
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want a future employer seeing pictures of you drunk and naked at a frat party, don't put them on the internet!
And what's to stop someone else from posting that pic of you drunk and naked at the frat party?
Re:Internets... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what's to stop someone else from posting that pic of you drunk and naked at the frat party?
Errr....I dunno, perhaps you taking charge for your own actions and not getting drunk and naked at a frat party?
One thing we should have learned by now, damned cameras are everywhere. Either take responsibility for your own actions, or expect the inevitable to happen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the best analogy I've ever seen on /. that didn't involve a car. Seriously.
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Insightful)
Privacy starts at home, kids.
What if you are home and Google Street View is in your driveway looking in your backyard or your window?
Re:Internets... (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook is a horrifying example of this. I have a friend who's facebook photos are nice and clean and show him as he (99% of the time) is. Shown right below that are the 300+ photos in which friends have tagged his face in so that people know they are of him. So... the 1% of his life in the last 3 years in which he made mistakes and did things that look ridiculous (wearing a bra on a dare, that type of stuff), are now plastered on the internet, and he cannot do anything about it.
So... yes, true privacy is dead. Long live the False Sense of Privacy.
Right on, except that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the time the person who is drunk and naked at a frat party isn't the one posting pictures on the internet. It would be impossible to count the number of times an ex-boyfriend post a passionate private video to an online porn site, or a passerby post a youtube video of an embarrassing moment.
Of course, people need to be careful about where and when they get drunk and stupid (never?) and who they allow to video them doing the nasty (no one,) but that doesn't make it right to post private moments, nor
This has nothing to do with privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom of speech is the right to say what you think if you don't thereby infringe on other people's higher valued rights (by committing libel). It's not the right to hide behind a false identity and make libelous claims.
It is also not "privacy" to go out in public, use a fake name and yell something, independent of whether it's true or not.
Privacy is the right to decide for yourself how much of the "things you don't do in public" becomes public (that's a vague definition, given).
There is no reason to protect the identity of trolls. There is a reason to protect their right to say their honest opinion, however stupid it may be -- but not their wish to make libelous claims and go unpunished.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is pretty serious.
While I'm not certainly not supporting or encouraging hateful speech online[...]
I think the writer wrote this because they're a covetous Jew and they don't want anyone stealing their Jew gold.
Re:womens' rights more important OR NOT? (Score:4, Insightful)
Using that logic I can make any speech illegal and exposed to retribution. Either Free Speech is an absolute right, or it is no right at all -- there is surprisingly little gray area in -between.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In this case, everyone agrees that the "misogynists" are scoundrels. For my own part, I don't find the harm done to the women to be all that concrete and I don't find the danger to society t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When that hateful remark is libel.
And, I want to point out some of the statements:
The thread included messages such as, "I think I will sodomize her. Repeatedly" and a reply claiming "she has herpes."
These are by far more than hateful remarks.
Re:Supid girls (Score:5, Informative)
If he's allowed to say those things, then her father/brother/boyfriend should be allowed to brutally murder the AC to protect her from rape (he did say he'd rape her). We (society) afford you rights and place limits on those rights, in exchange we protect you from your fellow man. Them's the rules. "God" didn't give us any rights, your rights are, in practice, what society decides your rights are. Often I disagree with society, but not in this case.
Re:Supid girls (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it was. Now, of course, it's fucked...
Re:Isn't there a matter of intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, hate speech is a somewhat subjective issue,
What body is going to decide what exactly is hate speech on the Internet?
Oddly enough, there is a body whose job is to determine the facts on matters that are somewhat subjective, and alledged to be harmful. That body is called "a jury."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you are missing the point. This isn't about suing for being offended, or using the law to hit back at someone for saying something mean. The anonymous postings in question clearly meet the legal threshold for libel (accusing someone of having an STD is automatically considered libel without proof of damages in most jurisdictions, I believe), and may meet the legal threshold for threats. These are actions which have been illegal, and legally punishable, for centuries. That they take place on the
Damage to job prospects is real. (Score:5, Informative)
If you were a blue chip firm, would you take the risk of hiring one of these women? Imagine your multi-million dollar client does a search on your new associate's name -- even just looking for phone number -- and comes up with a sordid sex story instead. Wow.... there's a real risk that you have just damaged the relationship with that client. Just as one example -- look at the Department of Justice's search on potential attorney hires. Now the DOJ was illegally considering political affiliation, not net fame, but the principle is the same: defamatory net stories would likely have prohibited these women from being considered.
That big firms are risk averse is hardly surprising. In fact, risk-aversion/paranoia is what -- in theory anyway -- is what makes an $x00 an hour lawyer worth paying for.
Note: this is also why I left a wanna-be big firm after a couple years. Who wants to work in an environment like that? But certaintly these women have the right to experience the hell of Big Firm life for themselves, and should not have had their careers permanently damaged because of a couple of idiots decided to slander them for fun.
Re:You can't harrass women online or anywhere else (Score:4, Funny)
I would submit that you are the new poster child for the pussification of America.
Re: (Score:3)
If it was Princeton then I'd be shocked. But Yale? I expect that kind of behavior Yale and the other clown colleges.