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The practice of posting nasty, anonymous comments on the Internet is as old as the Internet itself. We imagine the very first thing on the Internet ever went a little something like this:
I HAVE CREATED THE INTERNET! by user AlGore: "Hello, there, I have created the Internet. Enjoy!"Re: I HAVE CREATED THE INTERNET! by user CartmanRulz:
"n00b!"
But being able to get your snark on while hidden behind the barrier of a (mostly) secret identity could (maybe) be a thing of the past if the precedent set in Buffalo Grove today is allowed to stand. Buffalo Grove trustee Lisa Stone had been involved in what's been described as a heated campaign earlier this spring and the day before the election, a comment was posted on a Daily Herald story that said "deeply disturbing" things about Stone's 15-year-old son, who had gone toe-to-toe with the commenter in the story's comments section (several comments, which we assume are the offending comments, have been removed).
So Stone turned the tables on commenter "Hipcheck16" and went to court to fight for the right to learn that user's real name. Today, Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Lawrence ruled that, yes, Stone is "entitled" to learn Hipcheck16's real identity. Judge Lawrence had previously required Hipcheck16's internet provider, Comcast, to turn over the necessary information to him before reaching today's decision. The decision means only Stone and a process server will learn the identity should Stone decide to proceed with a threatened lawsuit against Hipcheck16, whose lawyer has promised an appeal.
Of course, now we reach that point of the slippery First Amendment slope. If such the ruling is upheld, it could set the precedent for future lawsuits and, quite possibly, a flood of needless lawsuits as a result of people getting their feelings hurt on a message board. Even if the courts were to pick-and-choose which one is worthy and dismiss the rest, just that extra workload would bog down the courts even further. Or a judge could rule the responsibility is with moderators rather than the commenters themselves. If Stone's son engaged the commenter as the DH reports, is he at least partly responsible? Where do we draw the line? Does this carry over to real life where one can be sued for saying something nasty on the playground? The can of worms that's opened by this whole mess gives us a headache and the idea of trying to moderate the entire internet is something that isn't even remotely possible, which makes our headache worse.
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A preview of next week, on chicagoist!:
jess_nevins: You're fat!
matilda: I can haz ur identity?
Spook: Fer realz, yall. Sue dat bitch.
Ingrid: But think about her poor little puppies!!!
LMAO!!!!
Nice!
well you are just an idiot for thinking that. ;)
You know what? I was just thinking we don't have enough frivolous lawsuits in this country. My prayers have been answered.
FIRST.
Oh damn, y'all beat me to it...
As always, Duty Calls
Oh, and BlueFairlane I am far more rude than that.
I'd have to see the comments to judge. If they were threatening or libelous in any manner, and directed toward a minor, I can see the court permitting a potential plaintiff to know the identity of the person making the comments. I'm an attorney and appear before Judge Lawrence on a regular basis. He's a fair and smart man. I suspect there were circumstances here that warranted identifying the person who made the comments.
Very funny Bluefairline....very funny...but did you read the post today over on Gothamist about the puppy that someone left tied to a post on the FDR?????
Someone has to think about the puppies!!!
Well, I have to admit, I do care more about the puppies than about some 15yr old kid in Buffalo Grove who was helping mommy with her campaign for some BS suburb office and got his feelings hurt on the internet. The fact it's in court, on the other hand, definitely upsets me. More taxpayer dollars getting shoveled into the bureaucratic furnace…
@Ingrid - Seriously? They left him tied to a post on the highway? Poor little guy :( Is he O.K. now?
Yeah, the post is gonna be fine.
Dog's probably fucking dead. Dumb dog.
I know you're baiting...but how is the dog dumb?
It's a puppy. It's dumb owners tied him to a post. How bout I get someone I know to tie your ass to a post?
I know, right?....poor little thing. I hope someone saw his pic on the internet and adopted him.
I also agree with the rest of your post.
I would guess the adoption process was pretty easy. Just go un-tie him and give him some Alpo and he's all yours... I can't say I'm surprised, but I do wonder WTF people are thinking sometimes. Just drop the thing off at the anti-cruelty society or some such place. Puppies get adopted pretty quick. How vacant/callous/stupid a person would have to be to tie a helpless dog to a post on the highway.
The First Amendment doesn't protect all forms of speech.
Nothing here has changed. There is no slippery slope.
Your right to anonymity doesn't trump my right to sue you for slander of libel.
*or* libel. dufus.
there's also the concept of, you know, not being an anonymous shitbag on the internet just because you can.
You didn't capitalize your sentence. Clearly you are an uneducated noob goon.
Comcast cannot say who posted the remarks.
Comcast at most can say who allegedly signed up for a screen name or an account.
No one can ever say who was using a computer or a screen name.
Good point, best point of all. End of story.
Actually, that's not quite true. In most cases - including here at Chicagoist - we're provided with an IP Address that a commenter has used to register. In this case, the Daily Herald had only the user's IP address. The judge ordered Comcast to turn that info over. From that, they were able to figure out the ISP and, subsequently it seems, the user's identity. Of course, that's not always the case as the computer used could be an office computer or another public computer (i.e., a public library or even internet cafe). And there are ways of getting around and even faking an IP address, but the fact the user in this case has an attorney representing him (as "John Doe") in court is proof enough they were able to figure out who it was.
We're still looking into this some more, including talking with an attorney, to try to figure out more about any implications of the case, which, admittedly, there might not be as much as we thought. That's what we're trying to figure out.