Personal Injury Law

You can run, but you can't hide from defamation

By Steve Lombardi

Think you can hide behind an anonymous name online while defaming someone you might not like, be jealous of, or just to be mean? Think again, the court has ruled in favor of Liskula Cohen against internet and search engine giant Google who refused to turn over the real name of the Blogger 'Anonymous'. Justice Joan Madden of the New York Supreme Court rejected the bloggers argument that, 'blogs serve as a modern day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting, and the statements in this action when considered in that context, cannot be reasonable understood as factual assertions.' He ruled that she was entitled to the information and ordered Google to turn it over. Miss Cohen has since called the women who she has openly called, 'in irrelevant person in my life. 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.' She said that she has forgiven her for comments such as, 'Skankiest in NYC, psychotic, lying,whoring…skank.'

What does this mean to you, to me, to the rest of the blogging world? I have always been bothered by the many on the internet who refuse to use their real name but are openly critical, threatening, and often defamatory towards others in the online community. I think that this is a reminder that what we say on the internet just might not be anonymous. So next time you're about to go on an anonymous rant about an individual and might say something you would never say in person think again you just might be exposed.

Does Google not understand the limits of free speech? Does Google not appreciate that defamation limits free speech? It does.

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on September 10, 2009 (boomark / email).