Another reason for anonymity

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

The first defamation suit involving the Usenet is described in a post
that apparently first appeared in misc.legal.moderated, and then
cross-posted into comp.org.eff.talk and alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk.

(I won't include it here, though I've ended up writing enough about it
that I should've just forwarded the whole thing to Cypherpunks!)

It involves a professor denied tenure (and dismissed) at the
University of Western Australia. Dept. of Archaeology, or similar.

The defendant made some comments last summer about the incompetence of
this professor (an ex-American, by the way), his habit of holding
"Puppy parties" with a local boy named "Puppy" as the chief
entertainment, his drinking exploits, and so on. I read the attacking
post and thought it somewhat more extreme than most Usenet comments.
But not by much. (And certainly comparable to the various posts
Detweiler made calling various people sodomites, spies, terrorists,
and so on.)

Anyway, the attacked professor (no longer at UWA, for the tenure
reasons cited above) filed a suit, the defendant chose not to show up
for the trial, and the judge recently issued his decision: AU$40,000
to the defendent, plus 8% annual interest to have begun September
1993.

Read the article to see what may be coming, in spades.

Of course, our legal minds here on Cypherpunks may be able to tell us
how likely such cases are to go this way in America. I can't say.

More reasons for anonymity, if one truly believes free speech should
be just that, unencumbered by charges of "defamation" and "damage." In
the Australian case, either the professor is "upstanding" (think of
Richard Feynman, for example), in which case the charges would just
bounce off (while I'm no Feynman, in any sense, those "sodomite"
charges of Detweiler I just shrugged off) or there's some substance to
the charges (i.e., he was a dissipated, pedophilic lech, who neglected
his research). Draw your own conclusions.

Anonymity has its problems, but it also allows discourse to be
somewhat isolated from the idiosyncrasies of the law.

And of course, in my view, it it completely kosher (I wanted to say
"exculpatory," as I fell into the rhythm of legal lingo, but I'd
probably be misusing the word terribly) for anonymous forums to
basically say: "This is a forum that allows anonymity and pseudonymous
speech. If this offends you, stay out. If you want to file a lawsuit
based on some insult you hear in this forum, good luck and fat chance
of winning!"

But then I'm a free speech radical.

(What about shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater? Let those who see
there's no fire beat the shit out of the twerp who shouted "Fire!"
Seems fair to me.)

--Tim May

-- 
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