Bloggers everywhere are beating their chests about the Delaware Supreme Court's decision last week that an anonymous blogger's identity can stay a secret.
The case erupted out of one of those juicy personal feuds that only small towns seem capable of producing. In this case, the town was Smyrna, Delaware, and the forum was an Internet site devoted to local politics.
An anonymous citizen using the alias "Proud Citizen" posted two items about Patrick Cahill, a Smyrna councilman, that Cahill believed to be defamatory:
"Anyone who has spent any amount of time with Cahill would be keenly aware of [his] character flaws, not to mention an obvious mental deterioration."
"Gahill [sic] is as paranoid as everyone in the town thinks he is..."
Who would say such mean things? Cahill suspected one of his local political enemies and did some sleuthing. He found out that the IP address associated with Proud Citizen's account belonged to Comcast, the local cable company. Then he sued to try and get Comcast to reveal Proud Citizen's identity. The state Supreme Court said: Forget it.
I suppose I'll have to side with every other blogger on this and say that this is a good thing--the First Amendment and all, yada yada. Anonymous blogs like PinkDome in Texas are great fun to read precisely because of the intrigue about who stands behind it. Likewise, as a now-defunct blog that sprang up in L.A.'s city hall a year ago showed, there is no better way than an anonymous blog to accurately assess important questions such as who is the hottest city employee.
Yet it's all too tempting for people who hide behind pseudonyms like "Proud Citizen" to say hurtful things. That's especially true at the local level, where rambunctious town council meetings already take on the flavor of a family feud. As Cahill told the News Journal, "Who would put up with abuse like this for $12.50 a week?"
MORE: Instant Influence (Governing, July 2004)
The Artful Blogger (last item)(Governing, December 2004)
In case anyone cares, the follow up to this blogging suit that everyone was so thrilled with was that in fact, we KNEW who the blogger was, their attorney had inadvertently sent us the comcast subpoena with their name on it. Who was it? The MAYOR or SMYRNA, our next door neighbor. We were able to tie John Doe's ip address, 68.33.239.31, to Mark Schaeffer, Mayor of Smyrna, Delaware and successfully sued him for slander and libel. So yes, you bloggers can remain anonymous and attack elected officials. Mark Schaeffer was not so anonymous, and we won.
Regards
Julia Cahill
Posted by: Julia | Thursday, April 05, 2007 at 09:21 AM