Illinois Supreme Court: Comcast Must Identify Anonymous Internet Commenter 233
An anonymous reader writes: In 2011, an anonymous person on the internet posted a comment to the Freeport Journal Standard newspaper's website implying that a local political candidate was a pedophile. The candidate, Bill Hadley, took offense to this, and tried to get Comcast to tell him who the commenter was. Comcast refused, so Hadley took it to the courts. The Illinois Supreme Court has now ruled (PDF) that Comcast must divulge the commenter's identity. "Illinois' opinion was based in large part on a pair of earlier, lower-court decisions in the state, which held that the anonymity of someone who makes comments in response to online news stories isn't guaranteed if their opinions are potentially defamatory, according to Don Craven, an attorney for the Illinois Press Association."
Bill Hadley is going to be disappointed (Score:2)
When he finds out the commenter was an 11 year old middle-schooler on his lunch break in the library, and not the great political adversary that he's making it out to be.
Not only that, but it's exceedingly difficult to make an example out of an 11 year old, to other 11 year olds, and not looking like an out of touch politician who's been expertly trolled by someone one fifth his age. This seems like a huge waste of resources, politically and judicially.
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When he finds out the commenter was an 11 year old middle-schooler on his lunch break in the library, and not the great political adversary that he's making it out to be.
Not only that, but it's exceedingly difficult to make an example out of an 11 year old, to other 11 year olds, and not looking like an out of touch politician who's been expertly trolled by someone one fifth his age. This seems like a huge waste of resources, politically and judicially.
I don't think he will be disappointed. I think the purpose of the lawsuit is to send a message to Mr. Hadley's future political opponents to be careful what they say about him. In other words, this is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech.
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I don't think he will be disappointed. I think the purpose of the lawsuit is to send a message to Mr. Hadley's future political opponents to be careful what they say about him. In other words, this is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech.
Accusing someone of molesting children is political speech now? Sure...
Isn't it right that people are careful what they say about other people?
Re:Bill Hadley is going to be disappointed (Score:4, Informative)
Accusing someone of molesting children is political speech now? Sure...
Isn't it right that people are careful what they say about other people?
I am a firm believer in free speech. The cure for bad speech (as the accusation apparently was) is not less bad speech but more good speech. If I were accused, anonymously, of pedophilia, I would not try to use the courts to find my accuser. Instead I would ignore the accusation unless it was repeated by an identifiable person, such as a reporter asking if it were true. I would answer the reporter by saying it was not, and offering to cooperate with the reporter's investigation into whether or not I was a podophile if he felt the accusation was credible enough to be worth the effort.
Re:Bill Hadley is going to be disappointed (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a firm believer in free speech. The cure for bad speech (as the accusation apparently was) is not less bad speech but more good speech.
Fine, but doesn't there have to be consequences when someone just makes shit up about someone else? Especially when it's something that is such a powderkeg in current climate? We don't consider it reasonable that people prove a negative, so you're already on the backfoot if someone decides to start a rumour. With Twitter and Wikipedia, it's very easy for a rumour to get repeated so much it feels like the truth.
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Fine, but doesn't there have to be consequences when someone just makes shit up about someone else? Especially when it's something that is such a powderkeg in current climate? We don't consider it reasonable that people prove a negative, so you're already on the backfoot if someone decides to start a rumour. With Twitter and Wikipedia, it's very easy for a rumour to get repeated so much it feels like the truth.
I have faith in people's intelligence. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think most people will see through baseless accusations, and not simply react to them with revulsion. If I were accused anonymously of pedophilia, with no further details, I would simply ignore the accusation, and I think most people would.
If somebody makes something up about me there are consequences: he loses credibility. I think that's enough. Yes, if you say something loud enough, and often enough, people will start to believe it. Howeve
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You're joking. Have you taken a look at people lately?
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You're joking. Have you taken a look at people lately?
I know what a mob can do. I'll never forget the Watts riots. Nevertheless, I believe in the basic goodness of people. As best I can tell, most people who riot are looters, just trying to steal stuff. They feel like if they don't take something they are foolishly depriving themselves. I don't see any evil there, just greed and selfishness.
There are truly evil people in the world, but they are by far the minority.
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You're joking. Have you taken a look at people lately?
Chill. He didn't say whether it was low or high intelligence. Sure he implied high by saying, " I think most people will see through baseless accusations", but the rest of his examples seem to contradict that by ignoring just how stupid and knee-jerky people can actually be.
Re:Bill Hadley is going to be disappointed (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me introduce you to Dale Akiki [nytimes.com]. Patently false accusations, including that he had sacrificed a giraffe in a church classroom during Sunday services, landed him in an extended court trial. He was eventually exonerated, but for a long stretch of the 1990s, everyone in San Diego knew he was a satanic pedophile.
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Let me introduce you to Dale Akiki [nytimes.com]. Patently false accusations, including that he had sacrificed a giraffe in a church classroom during Sunday services, landed him in an extended court trial. He was eventually exonerated, but for a long stretch of the 1990s, everyone in San Diego knew he was a satanic pedophile.
An interesting article, thank you. It recounts a shameful period of American history, when people were convicted of child abuse based on manufactured evidence. However, I do not agree that "everyone in San Diego" believed that Dale Akiki was a satanic pedophile. My daughter was living in San Diego at the time, and I don't think she believed it. In fact, I would venture to guess that most people in San Diego who were even aware of the trial treated it as theatre.
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Most people in San Diego that I knew at the time thought it was bullshit. Thus the district attorney was voted out of office at the next chance. Even when Dale Akiki was in prison the other prisoners treated him well, which is not what you expect for people accused of being pedophiles in prison. This was essentially the last of the panic over satanic rituals in preschools and sunday schools.
Of course there were the fringe people, the vein of ultra pro-law-enforcement political blowhards and their followe
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I have faith in people's intelligence. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think most people will see through baseless accusations, and not simply react to them with revulsion. If I were accused anonymously of pedophilia, with no further details, I would simply ignore the accusation, and I think most people would.
But that's not the only issue. This thread seems to be about high profile situations, but it's the ones that don't get much media attention which are the issue. When you go to apply for a job, and your prospective employer Googles your name, and they see a comment that implies you're a pedophile -- do you think they will just ignore it? Or, if you're trying to get a contract with a client, and the same thing happens, will they just ignore it?
Probably many will. But for others, you'll be "tainted." Th
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You have a good point, and I don't have a very good answer either. There is the evil of being persecuted based on unfounded rumor, and there is the evil of "the right to be forgotten" leading to unpersons as described in "Nineteen Eighty-Four", where the inner party controls history.
Personally, I feel that the risk of tyranny is the greater of the two evils. If somebody is unwilling to deal with me socially because of a rumor about me that they've heard, and they are unwilling to ask me or those who know
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I have faith in people's intelligence. Maybe I'm wrong,
And history shows pretty clearly that you are.
Libel laws did not arise out of some lawmaker's whim. They developed over a very long time, and for very good societal reasons.
Knowingly and intentionally (not the same things) making false statements about somebody can do real damage to his or her reputation, livelihood, family life, etc. I mean real damage, in the same sense as a broken leg is damage. Once that's done, maybe they won't have the resources to fight back. Clearly that would be a one-sided s
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I have faith in people's intelligence. Maybe I'm wrong,
And history shows pretty clearly that you are.
Libel laws did not arise out of some lawmaker's whim. They developed over a very long time, and for very good societal reasons.
Knowingly and intentionally (not the same things) making false statements about somebody can do real damage to his or her reputation, livelihood, family life, etc. I mean real damage, in the same sense as a broken leg is damage. Once that's done, maybe they won't have the resources to fight back. Clearly that would be a one-sided situation favoring the "false witness". That's why there are legal remedies.
Of course legal remedies aren't a panacea. It takes money, time, and effort to sue somebody. That's why sometimes even if it really is libel, and really can be proved, and the injured party really does want to sue, he or she may not be reasonably able to at any given time for a number of reasons.
In order for libel laws to be effective, it has to be possible to identify the accuser. Even when it is, the accuser may be beyond the reach of justice, for example by being dead. The major benefit of libel laws, in my opinion, is that they provide a public forum (court) where the issue can be debated and a neutral party (judge or jury) can publicly decide who is right. That doesn't work if the accuser can't be made to defend his position.
In my opinion, the libel laws should apply only to an accuser who
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Accusing someone of molesting children is political speech now? Sure...
Isn't it right that people are careful what they say about other people?
I am a firm believer in free speech. The cure for bad speech (as the accusation apparently was) is not less bad speech but more good speech. If I were accused, anonymously, of pedophilia, I would not try to use the courts to find my accuser. Instead I would ignore the accusation unless it was repeated by an identifiable person, such as a reporter asking if it were true. I would answer the reporter by saying it was not, and offering to cooperate with the reporter's investigation into whether or not I was a podophile if he felt the accusation was credible enough to be worth the effort.
Free speech does not imply freedom from the consequences of your speech. If you make untrue accusations about someone you can be held accountable for your actions. The government is not stopping you from speaking, which would infringe your free speech rights. if you do it anonymously then it is not ureasonable for someone to want to pierce the veil of anonymity.
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Free speech does not imply freedom from the consequences of your speech. If you make untrue accusations about someone you can be held accountable for your actions. The government is not stopping you from speaking, which would infringe your free speech rights. if you do it anonymously then it is not ureasonable for someone to want to pierce the veil of anonymity.
The road you are going down leads to suppression of speech which the powerful find uncomfortable. I would rather have the ability for an anonymous speaker to remain anonymous, no matter what he says. I would rather make the effort to ignore hateful and foolish speech than risk the suppression of dissent.
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If I were accused, anonymously, of pedophilia, I would not try to use the courts to find my accuser. Instead I would ignore the accusation unless it was repeated by an identifiable person, such as a reporter asking if it were true. I would answer the reporter by saying it was not, and offering to cooperate with the reporter's investigation into whether or not I was a podophile if he felt the accusation was credible enough to be worth the effort.
Reporter investigation? What's that?
No seriously for the most part investigations are a thing of the past. We live in a world where everyone is a live reporter themselves. An accusation gets made and moments later it hits twitter, Facebook etc, and millions of people know you as a paedophile. Then you come out through a reputable news agency and millions of people will think "Of course he says that, he's trying to hid the fact he's a paedophile!". When things go REALLY south you may even find reputable news
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Reporter investigation? What's that?
No seriously for the most part investigations are a thing of the past. We live in a world where everyone is a live reporter themselves. An accusation gets made and moments later it hits twitter, Facebook etc, and millions of people know you as a paedophile. Then you come out through a reputable news agency and millions of people will think "Of course he says that, he's trying to hid the fact he's a paedophile!". When things go REALLY south you may even find reputable news agencies pick up what's making the round on twitter as fact, and then your Wikipedia page will have that listed as well complete with references to the media.
Anonymous Cowards can do a lot of damage in the modern media because the masses in general are stupid. Heck last week someone took a selfie of themselves against some poster, and some white knight though he was taking a snap of a child sitting further away, took his photo and it was shared several 10s of thousands of times on Facebook until someone AT HIS WORK mentioned it.
And yet there are still some reporters who do investigations.
I think you have identified the heart of the problem: "...the masses in general are stupid." It is my hope that, in time, the masses will become less stupid. Even so, I would rather suffer from the stupidity of the masses than risk the suppression of all speech that offends the powerful.
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Accusing a political opponent of horrific personal practices has always been part of political speech. It's often a distasteful and even fraudulent part of politics. But the ability to publish negative facts about a politician, anonymously or pseudonymously, is also a vital part of revealing true facts about politics safely. If it weren't, 'Wikilieaks' wouldn't be useful. So the right balance can be quite tricky.
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I would imagine that the number of 11 year olds who review past Illinois Supreme Court decisions in their spare time is vanishingly, vanishingly small.
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I would imagine that the number of 11 year olds who review past Illinois Supreme Court decisions in their spare time is vanishingly, vanishingly small.
I agree, but I don't think Mr. Hadley believes that all of his future political opponents will be 11 years old.
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In other words, this is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech.
That depends. If you think smear campaigns are a legitimate weapon of politics, then yes.* ... * In which case you're welcome to explain how this is not a legitimate defence against smear campaigns.
The proper defense against a smear campaign is not to try to silence the smearer, but to defend yourself against the merits of the attack. If it is a bare, unsupported, accusation, just deny it. If the smearer offers evidence, offer evidence of your own that the accusation is untrue. The cure for bad speech is not less bad speech but more good speech.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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For this kind of smear, in this kind of context? No, no "more speech" isn't the solution, it actually makes it worse to issue denials as it makes the original allegation more prominent, and makes a large percentage of the population think it might be true because "there's no smoke without fire."
Doesn't filing a court case do even more than a denial to make the original allegation more prominent?
Re: Bill Hadley is going to be disappointed (Score:2)
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If it is a bare, unsupported, accusation, just deny it. If the smearer offers evidence, offer evidence of your own that the accusation is untrue.
For example, an ad to show that I am not a witch [youtube.com]. Everyone will believe that.
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If it is a bare, unsupported, accusation, just deny it. If the smearer offers evidence, offer evidence of your own that the accusation is untrue.
For example, an ad to show that I am not a witch [youtube.com]. Everyone will believe that.
If the original accusation was simple "She's a witch" then it would have been better to ignore it, in my opinion. Apparently she thought she could ridicule her opponents by turning it into a joke. Maybe she is right.
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Just tracing the IP Address to an account doesn't mean it was the ISP customer themselves that made the comment...
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If posting on an interblog that "$some_person is a $bad_thing eleventyone" is expert trolling, I'd hate to see what you consider as inane prattle.
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Re: Bill Hadley is going to be disappointed (Score:2)
The comment (Score:5, Informative)
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That's it? Really? The comment was not more specific than that? That's "defamation"??
Not that it really concerns me, but yes I checked out what view he has: he lives on the other side of a well-trafficked road from the front entrance of the school. He could see kids being dropped off and picked up by their parents. That's it.
It took me 20 seconds to check this on Google. If anyone else did what I did, then they would also see that the comment has no merit.
Re:The comment (Score:5, Informative)
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Wow..that's it? That tiny little YouTube quality comment deserved a case to be viewed by the Illinois Supreme Court?!
Only someone with a decent amount of money could even hope to bring such a frivolous thing to such a horrible end. Normally garbage like this gets thrown out.
There are two forms of justice in this country. I really hope that either Comcast has already thrown out this log or it was made from a coffee shop or restaurant or some other location where it would be impossible to determine the person
Remember Oscar Wilde (Score:5, Interesting)
So of course an anonymous comment is no reason to believe someone is a pedophile, unless corroborated by further evidence.
But still, when I hear of defamation lawsuits like this, I always think back to Oscar Wilde.
He sued for defamation when someone outed him as homosexual. He lost and legal fees bankrupted him. And because sodomy was a crime, he was thrown in jail.
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So of course an anonymous comment is no reason to believe someone is a pedophile, unless corroborated by further evidence.
Indeed. The Slashdot crowd knows this as I believe we are in general on the upper scale of intelligence and know what "logic" means.
However in this world an anonymous comment with no evidence can be quite damaging if someone decides to run with it and repeat it. Your reputation can be destroyed in an hour because people don't sit down and research what the news outlets may say.
So Bill Hadley is upset at being outed? (Score:2)
He should own it! Wear a pedobear shirt to court.
Just because Bill Hadley is a kiddie diddler the world has the right to know what politicians do behind closed doors..
I never thought I would see the day (Score:2)
when I took Comcast's side on anything. I was wrong. This kind of shit needs to stop. Every shitty anonymous comment on the internet isn't even close to the same thing that defamation/libel laws were written for.
Re:political speech (Score:4, Insightful)
The comment in question falls under political speech. The commenter is commenting on a political candidate, after all.
I don't think so. Politically motivated, perhaps, but implying someone is a paedophile isn't the same thing as disagreeing with his political views.
Calling a candidate a pedophile hardly differs from the bipartisan mudslinging that takes place in most elections anyway.
That's a poor argument. I'd sooner say everyone should stop with the senseless mudslinging and talk about political issues again. Then again, in 'murika it's all about entrenched "views" that merely serve to pick sides in the perpetual shouting match you call "politics" but everyone else has long since lost interest in, since both sides appear to want exactly the same thing: Shout at the other side some more.
That's hardly "political discourse". It's just shouting.
IMO, the Supreme Court has exceeded it's authority in this case.
And that's poor grammar.
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That's a poor argument. I'd sooner say everyone should stop with the senseless mudslinging and talk about political issues again.
Removing first amendment rights so that we all behave nicer to each other during elections seems hardly a good justification.
Re:political speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Defamation, along with obscenity and inciting panic or violence, have never been free speech. Slander and libel are civil crimes that you can be sued for in court, and it's been that way since day one. To facilitate enforcement of defamation laws, the court has decided it's acceptable to try and de-anonymize the poster in question.
Just because the words are about a political candidate, does not make it political speech. This case is not the same as speaking unpopular political views and opinions - that WOULD be protected speech. It's the difference between supporting Nazi idealism (free speech) and accusing someone of being a Nazi (not free speech).
=Smidge=
Re:political speech (Score:5, Informative)
Defamation, along with obscenity and inciting panic or violence, have never been free speech. Slander and libel are civil crimes that you can be sued for in court, and it's been that way since day one. To facilitate enforcement of defamation laws, the court has decided it's acceptable to try and de-anonymize the poster in question.
Just because the words are about a political candidate, does not make it political speech. This case is not the same as speaking unpopular political views and opinions - that WOULD be protected speech. It's the difference between supporting Nazi idealism (free speech) and accusing someone of being a Nazi (not free speech).
=Smidge=
Nope. According to Times v. Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] it is not a civil offense to make false, defamatory statements about public officials unless you do it with malice, which means that you either knew that it was false or disregarded whether it was true or false. (The Times printed false statements in the advertisement at issue in Times v. Sullivan.) Anyone running for office is a public figure.
People accuse public figures of being Nazis all the time. In the Wall Street Journal comments section, which requires people to use their full names, people accuse Obama and others of being socialists, and sometimes Communists and Nazis. One ongoing debate is over whether Frank Marshall Davis was a Communist, as J. Edgar Hoover and one recent right-wing book said he was. Davis was the unnamed mentor that Obama mentioned in his autobiography.
The rule in civil damages is no harm, no foul. That's the next hurdle. In order to get damages in court, you have to prove that the action caused you damages. John Henry Faulk won a libel suit against Aware, the blacklisting group, because they called him a Communist when he wasn't, and he lost income as a result of being blacklisted.
I haven't seen any evidence that Bill Hadley was harmed by being likened to a pedophile. Hadley is going to try to find someone who will testify that he actually believed the anonymous pedophile accusation, and did something damaging to Hadley as a result.
One of the defenses in a libel case like that would be the "political hyperbole" defense, that nobody took it seriously. That's like the parody defense in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (where Hustler published a parody of a liquor ad which quoted Falwell of saying that his first time was with his mother in the outhouse).
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Defamation, along with obscenity and inciting panic or violence, have never been free speech.
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Re:political speech (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:political speech (Score:5, Informative)
Free Speech does not equate to guaranteed anonymity.
Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
Re:political speech (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been thinking about the cost of anonymity. I think it's an often necessary element of political speech, but it's not free. It requires a sacrifice on the part of the person who chooses anonymity.
There is a reason society is suspicious of people who cover their faces.
A blanket expectation of anonymity in all things is unreasonable if you want to participate fully in society. If everyone were completely anonymous, I believe that would likely be an impediment to free speech. Because at some point, credibility is required.
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There is a reason society is suspicious of people who cover their faces.
Yes, absolutely. I am one of those people, I rant about ACs all the time here on Slashdot — but my question is why should anyone take you seriously, and if they have a good answer, that's great. Usually they don't, if I'm bothering to ask the question.
But really, it's society's responsibility not to take anonymous people seriously when they make unfounded allegations, and to either follow up on them responsibly, or not at all. That is the solution to the down sides of people being permitted to make an
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Anonymity was popular with the Ku Klux Klan. That's why anti-Klan laws often have a prohibition on being masked in public.
Re: political speech (Score:2)
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If everyone were completely anonymous, I believe that would likely be an impediment to free speech. Because at some point, credibility is required.
Which is why historically -- and today -- people use pseudonyms, which can be more durable (and thus accrue reputation and credibility), but still not necessarily tied to a real-world identity.
Anonymity is not "an impediment to free speech." Complete anonymity can make it difficult to evaluate the quality of the speech, but it does not impede speech. Pseudonyms can solve that problem in many cases.
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I've been thinking about the cost of anonymity. I think it's an often necessary element of political speech, but it's not free. It requires a sacrifice on the part of the person who chooses anonymity.
Simply calling someone - even a politician - a pedophile is *not* "political speech", it's slander/libel - unless you can back it up with proof.
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Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
Sure you can. Free speech protects the speaker from prosecution based on beliefs or opinions, but does not free the speaker from accountability. The key exception would be protection of whistleblowers, press, and their sources. Slander does not fall into those veins.
Re:political speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
Sure you can. Free speech protects the speaker from prosecution based on beliefs or opinions, but does not free the speaker from accountability.
That's nice in theory, but in the real world but the only protection people have against prosecution for what they said is anonymity. Try offending a mob boss, saying something your local police department really doesn't like, printing cartoons of a prophet, etc, and see if your government's protections for free speech save you from being persecuted for what you said.
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"You cited an example of criminal prosecution for expressing an opinion. That is not free speech."
What's the allowed accountability for free speech, then, and who is allowed to set what accountability is valid within free speech and what's not?
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An example is when a comment sparks a boycott, or gets you fired from your job. Free speech does not protect you from those outcomes.
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"Accountability comes in many forms. From the opinions of others of you, [when a comment sparks a boycott, or gets you fired from your job] to being sued for liable, and many shades in between."
So your answer to "what's allowed accountability for free speech" is, it seems, any kind of public penalty and any kind of civil liability, but not criminal prosecution. Is it all that? Are you aware that under your limits it becomes "kosher" to be killed by a mob that happens to disagree with your opinions?
The sec
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Is it OK to suffer civil prosecution for expressing an opinion? I guess many would answer differently depending on the expressed opinion. So, it really doesn't matter and is not relevant to my specific point.
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My logic does not say that. You cited an example of criminal prosecution for expressing an opinion. That is not free speech.
Funny, that logic is why SCOTUS has ruled repeatedly that anonymous [wikipedia.org] speech [wikipedia.org] must be protected, and various civil [eff.org] liberties groups [aclu.org] push to protect it.
I'll agree that slander and libel shouldn't be protected, but suggest that unsealing the identities of the anonymous person(s) should only be possible after proving the case--the court may only order that what might be necessary to have to identify the person be preserved and a good faith effort made to offer them the opportunity to come forward to defend themse
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I never stated if this particular case warrant exposure, just pointing out the differences. Opinions and slander are two different things. Anonymity is not what is being protected IMHO as much as requiring a group or entity to give up anonymity with no legal basis such as libel.
Which is precisely why I suggested requiring that the statements be proved slander/libel (they're not the same thing) before removing anonymity. Doing so when it's only potentially defamatory, as it is in this case, is at utter best merely a chilling effect.
To be honest, about the only good reason I could see doing it at that point is if the only thing that could possibly make it not defamatory is it being true because I'm not sure if somebody who is anonymous can effectively make that particular defense.
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"Illinois Supreme Court: Comcast Must Identify Anonymous Internet Commenter"
So, uh... Do you suppose this case went all the way to the ILSC because Bill Hadley wants to send him a sternly-worded rebuttal?
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And I repeat - Do you suppose Hadley just wants a new penpal?
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What if this anonymous speaker turns out to be the staff of his political opposition? Certainly election law comes into play. Does that change anything for you?
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If you want to have a debate about burden of proof required to expose someone, then fine, but that was not my point nor did I defend the actions or ruling.
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Free Speech does not equate to guaranteed anonymity.
Without anonymity, you can't have free speech.
Not all speech if free. This was libel - potentially anyway, we don't know if the statement is false. It's up to the accuser to demonstrate the veracity of his/her statement of face the consequences of trying to defame someone. Anonymity isn't a shield for things like this.
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It's a two-edged weapon.
- With anonymity you can speak while having a low risk of being harassed.
- With anonymity you will not have the same level of credibility, and you need to build your case more thoroughly.
So if some anonymous troll refers to someone as a pedophile it's not credible and most people will and shall ignore that.
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So if some anonymous troll refers to someone as a pedophile it's not credible and most people will and shall ignore that.
Yes, that is what a reasonable person would do. When someone is so defensive that they have to attack unfounded, anonymous accusations, that's more telling than the accusation itself.
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Or the defensive person knows how unreasonable and impressionable people are.
Granted the guy has totally went off the deep end and Striesand Effect-ed himself, but have you ever read the comments section on a local newspaper or TV station's website (or read /. at -1)? It's amazing we still have electricity and running water given those geniuses.
I agree that is what a reasonable person would do, but I would charge that most people aren't reasonable.
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You say "Without anonymity, you can't have free speech."
Really? On what logic is that true?
HTH, HAND [wikipedia.org]
You might just as well put a white pointed hood over your face if you lack the courage to identify yourself,
Please provide a link to a scan of your driver's license.
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You say "Without anonymity, you can't have free speech."
Really? On what logic is that true? By what historical example is that based? Most (if not all) of the American Revolutionary pamphleteers I have studied proudly signed their names to their work. The Colonial newspaper editorialists signed their names. Without demonstrating the strength of their convictions by courageously identifying themselves, (we mutually pledge our lives fortunes and sacred honor) free speech isn't worth much. You might just as well put a white pointed hood over your face if you lack the courage to identify yourself, and if you do that, your words offer little to any discourse.
You and I must have studied different American Revolutionary pamphleteers. The Federalist Papers were anonymous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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These are the times that try men's souls.
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If that's so obvious why wasn't it written in the Constitution?
You've got that backwards. Things which were considered obvious weren't written into the constitution. Today, we would be a lot more explicit when writing the second amendment for example — whatever you think their intentions were then, we'd make them much more clear now.
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Free Speech does not equate to guaranteed anonymity.
We have a pretty solid tradition of equating free speech with anonymity in the U.S.
The Federalist Papers were published anonymously. Much of the political debate at the creation of the U.S. was published anonymously. People routinely used pseudonyms in published articles.
And they didn't have ISP logs back then.
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If you pointed out that the politician being defamed was a Republican, you'd have been modded up. You know how it rolls around here, free speech is the inalienable right to say things people like.
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Not technically, no, but the way things work in practical reality if the customer isn't the commenter it's someone else in that household and the customer will very likely be able to point the finger at them. The only problem might be if they're running open WiFi, otherwise all the methods you describe involve way too much effort and/or technical chops for a random person to put into just making a comment like this. When option A is 95% likely and option B is 5% likely, B might happen but that's not the way
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Except what is "reasonable" is considered a "fact", and its not law enforcement thats supposed to decide what the facts are. It is judges that determine what a
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Isn't part of all this government snooping been that ISP have to keep logs for years now?
Re: Why does the world need to be so complex (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing that an anonymous person can say about someone that I will take seriously without evidence. So, if an anonymous person says that candidate X is a pedophile, but offers no evidence, I will take it as the ranting of a liar, and candidate X has not been harmed in any way, beyond registering as a person who has angered some random anonymous coward. On the other hand, if candidate X takes it upon himself to waste the court's time with crap which endangers the anonymity of legitimately fearful critics of policy everywhere, I suddenly believe candidate X is an ass, unelectable, and possibly even a pedophile.
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liar
The word you want here is 'troll', actually, the internet is lousy with them, and they're abusing/destroying anonymity for everyone who has a legitimate need for it.
Re: Why does the world need to be so complex (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Why does the world need to be so complex (Score:4, Interesting)
A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.
-- Robert A. Heinlein
Re: (Score:2)
That is a reflection of your common sense more than anything, something the world at large lacks. While the candidate's name may not have been tainted for your eyes there are waaaay too many people who will take an anonymous and baseless claim as gospel. I agree with you that this shouldn't affect him. But I agree with him that since it does the perpetrator should be identified, and the court is the way to do that.
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We want the ability to stay anonymous, however if someone else abuses such rights, we want them to be punished.
Speak for yourself. I just want freedom of speech (for which anonymity is a key protection). When it crosses the line into physical action, then I'll consider the use of force.
This is 2015. We have the Internet. You'd think people would learn to take ACs with a sack of salt.
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"If he was using TOR, or a VPN or anything, they're Out of luck anyways. Plus as they said above, its not like the ISP keeps 4 year old logs"
And if they did, wouldn't it be against the law? Perhaps forbidden tree etc?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus as they said above, its not like the ISP keeps 4 year old logs"
And if they did, wouldn't it be against the law? Perhaps forbidden tree etc?
IANAL but I imagine the moment something was file in court, the ISP was required to retain all those records until final disposition.
Re: Unlikely to matter at all (Score:2)
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You mean like you who beats your spouse, goes on drunken tirades and molests your own children?
Now i understand you don't want to respond to those allegations because it might appear as if you have some reason to be sensitive to them. And not responding to them doesn't mean you acknowledge they are true but we all know the truth.
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I've never been married and I'd be more than happy to submit to a random urinalysis to prove that I don't even drink... but how'd you know about the rest?? ;)
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The same guy who told Harry Reid that Romney didn't pay taxes told me about it.
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> They are nothing but actors.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
William Shakespeare's "As You Like it", Act II, Schene 2. The rest of