I meant it in the best possible way.
by schwim on Aug.21, 2009, under Miscellaneous
In a move that should scare the living hell out of every 12 year old that has written nasty things about their classmates on the bathroom wall, a judge has ruled that you don’t deserve your privacy if you’re going to use it to say nasty things about people.
Someone was using a blog to bash current and has-been models in the New York area, which kind of ticked Liskula Cohen, since she was one of the targets. She decided to sue to find out who was calling her a skank, ho and psychotic.
Well, it seems you can no longer hide behind your anonymity if you plan to call someone a ho. People now have a right to find out who the nefarious villain is. In this case, it seems to be a coward, as the writer shut down the blog immediately after the suit was filed:
The unidentified creator of the blog was represented in court by an attorney, Anne Salisbury, who said her client voluntarily took the blog down when Cohen initiated legal action against it.
Which may have helped the case get the ruling it did. If the blogger had any interballs, there might have been some chance of this having a different outcome.
Let me be clear, I don’t condone what anonymous coward did. Anyone wasting any time in their lives on the modeling society deserves what they get. I worry about how this ruling can be used in a case that involves real people with real lives. Instead of a coward calling a model a ho, what about a citizen calling their police chief a thug, or their mayor a thief? If people that don’t have the power to protect themselves in any other way than through anonymity lose that last bastion of security, will we see as many viral movements that try to make change if every person knows they can be outed? I’m sure Marion Barry would be happy to hear of this development.
And if Liskula Cohen happens to read this? I don’t think you’re a ho, so please don’t shut down my blog.
August 21st, 2009 on 4:43 pm
I will hunt you down wherever I must travel within these innertubes! I am not yet a ho! All your blog are belong to me!
August 21st, 2009 on 6:21 pm
I knew it. I mean really, how could I have expected this to slip by unnoticed, when my blog is the go-to place for people at the forefront of popular culture?
You can have my blog, but you’ll never take my take my dignity.
I gave that up long ago.
August 21st, 2009 on 11:09 pm
Solution: Learn how to wardrive. Create e-mail addresses and identities through the unsuspecting wi-fi user’s connection, then post the damning evidence at Wikileaks, via usenet or on a bunch of suitable forums.
Those methods might not remain open for long, though, if police forces and governments get their way (and that’s no joke – recently, there has been pressure applied along those lines here).
August 22nd, 2009 on 10:17 am
Yeah! Awwwriight! About time these e-wimps and cyber-hoes hiding behind their interweb-anonymity started feeling the real heat of a full blown cyber-snit! They’re just gettin’ what they deserve!
This ain’t no Mickey-Mouse deal here! This is the real e-world we’re talking about here, and this stuff needs to have e-consequences!
There’s nothing worse than having your e-rep cyber-whacked by wannabe cyber-blogger.
Yeah, buddy! I had a guy call me an e-barstard on the wubbleyou-wubbleyou-weirdness once. Been cyber-hunting him ever since. And I’ll e-ventually get him, too! (insert virtual snort here!)
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(Sigh!)
On a more serious note, what’s the proper e-punishment here, folks. In keeping with the relative sanity of the whole damn affair, what are we going to do … spank their little mice and sentence them back to dial-up? Sounds like some sick digital S&M ritual to me.
I cyber-weep for the e-species.