Recently, we wrote about the growing trend of businesses addressing the privacy concerns of their customers, cracking down on tracking bugs, disclosing information sharing practices, and even creating new business models. But online privacy isn’t just limited to a business’ privacy policy or a website’s cookies— it’s also a contentious issue on internet forums. Media sites are finding it more and more difficult to balance the rights of their users to remain anonymous and still be held accountable for their words. To make matters more difficult, there are laws protecting individuals on either side of the issue.
When it comes to online postings, there are two main schools of thought. On the one hand, allowing posters to remain anonymous helps protect their right to free speech: individuals will be more willing to express themselves if they know they won’t be targeted because of their opinions. On the other hand, anonymity means that cyber-bullies can make defamatory claims without being held accountable for their harmful speech.
People who agree with the first position argue that we need to protect the rights of even the most vitriolic forum poster in order to preserve the rights of many. It’s a position much like the Supreme Court’s on Snyder v. Phelps, where the justices ruled that the Westboro Baptist church’s protests at military funerals — no matter how distasteful — were protected under the First Amendment. Extreme cases test the rules, but the rules are there to protect the majority.
Those who support the opposing position think that just as individuals have a right to express their opinions, they have a right to defend themselves against defamation. There should be legal recourse, they argue, for finding and prosecuting those who post malicious rumors, ethnic slurs, and similarly negative content. Already, websites have the ability to track down specific commentators via their IP address; however, the question is not so much how to find posters as how to get websites to release the information.
For example, many news media outlets have forums for readers to post their thoughts and reactions, but getting a news organization to uncover a poster’s identity is a difficult task, thanks in part to the journalism shield laws originally implemented to protect sources from exposure. Judges are also reluctant to force these sites from revealing their users’ identities, so they often require defamation lawyers to prove that the identifying information required cannot be ascertained in any other way.
While many news organizations wish to protect their atmosphere of free speech and free exchange of ideas and information, some wonder if the online comments sections qualify as a legitimate news-gathering resource, and if the legal costs of defending offensive posts are worth it (under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, websites can’t be held responsible for the content created by their users, so they have no legal obligation to defend users’ posts). As a result, some newspaper websites like Buffalo News have taken to removing the anonymity option for posters, resulting in reduced volume but higher quality posts. Other websites find terms of service to be useful tools, since these agreements force users to conform to certain standards of civility. Users who violate the TOS with offensive comments have their posts deleted, and sometimes their accounts are terminated.
Related articles
- Buffalo News, Sun Chronicle Ban Anonymous Comments (marketingvox.com)
- Website Posters’ Anonymity Is Being Put To The Test (indystar.com)
- Fix for anonymous sleaze is in our attitudes, not laws (salon.com)
- Just Because You Don’t Like Something Online, Doesn’t Mean We Should Blame Third Parties (techdirt.com)
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