The Delaware Supreme Court, Anonymity, and Truth
Brietbart reported a few days back that the Delaware Supreme Court had thrown out a lower-court order for Comcast to serve up to plaintiff's lawyers the names of four anonymous posters to a blog site operated by Independent Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Delaware State News. In the obscenity-laced postings, the four had savaged a local councilman and his wife, calling into question his manhood, mental fitness, and other qualities.
The Court ruled that a prima facie case for defamation had to be established before an anonymous critic could be "outed" - and since the postings could only be interpreted as opinion, no case for defamation existed.
Importantly, the Court specifically cited its desire to protect blogging - "the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering" - from any "chilling effect" brought about by aggressive counsel or government agency.
There's a bit of irony here. While so much has been written about talented bloggers, and even more blogs have been launched about how to self-promote and make money, little attention has been paid to anonymous blogging.
In fact, the credibility of the blogger has become the main currency of the genre: As visitors, we get access to the entire blog, comments (warts) and all; links the blogger deems important; a bio; clippings; personal photos; and, for some bloggers, advertisements and the imprimatur they bring.
And what do we do as readers? We filter all this information through our own built-in shock-proof shit detector (tip o' the hat to Ernest) and decide whether we trust the writer or not.
We also get a sense of trust from reading about bloggers and their blogs in professional media (although at times it all does seem to resemble one big mutual-admiration society), and following links to blogs from other bloggers whom we trust.
So while most bloggers are trying to achieve fame and fortune by putting their best, er, foot forward, these four (and I suspect, many others) are putting out earnest comment from behind whatever veil of anonymity the Internet can afford (and for as long as your ISP doesn't get a subpoena).
The Delaware Court has shone a small light on the value anonymous bloggers bring to the debate; we need to think of ways to allow trust to filter out to these bloggers who have turned trust, the currency of blogging, on its head.
They may get linked to, they may even put up personal photos (with black bars across their eyes, of course), but the trust some will deserve (and there will be some) has to come from the only thing that really matters in writing, printing, blogging, or any other form of communication - truth.
We have to train on our built-in shock-proof shit detectors to respond to great writing, sharp insight, searing comment, and truth - and not because Nick or Jeff or Oprah or God has linked to a particular blogger. We can't let style or hipness or buzz or Google Ad clicks be our polestars, or we will indeed be lost.
As we start to deify some bloggers and instinctively ignore others, let's remember that Thomas Paine's thunderous declaration regarding "the times that try men's souls" was signed - not entitled - "Common Sense" (the 16 Crisis essays, published between 1776-1783, were all signed, anonymously, "Common Sense").
The Delaware four were likely not concerned with truth but rather ridicule (I haven't read their posts), and obscenity is never called for. But, ironically, those chuckleheads help point the way to the polestar for the Chinese dissident blogging about human-rights abuses, the wife of an Iraqi detainee tortured by US soldiers, the FEMA employee blowing the whistle on truly dangerous chuckleheads.
It's about truth. Let's never forget that.
The Court ruled that a prima facie case for defamation had to be established before an anonymous critic could be "outed" - and since the postings could only be interpreted as opinion, no case for defamation existed.
Importantly, the Court specifically cited its desire to protect blogging - "the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering" - from any "chilling effect" brought about by aggressive counsel or government agency.
There's a bit of irony here. While so much has been written about talented bloggers, and even more blogs have been launched about how to self-promote and make money, little attention has been paid to anonymous blogging.
In fact, the credibility of the blogger has become the main currency of the genre: As visitors, we get access to the entire blog, comments (warts) and all; links the blogger deems important; a bio; clippings; personal photos; and, for some bloggers, advertisements and the imprimatur they bring.
And what do we do as readers? We filter all this information through our own built-in shock-proof shit detector (tip o' the hat to Ernest) and decide whether we trust the writer or not.
We also get a sense of trust from reading about bloggers and their blogs in professional media (although at times it all does seem to resemble one big mutual-admiration society), and following links to blogs from other bloggers whom we trust.
So while most bloggers are trying to achieve fame and fortune by putting their best, er, foot forward, these four (and I suspect, many others) are putting out earnest comment from behind whatever veil of anonymity the Internet can afford (and for as long as your ISP doesn't get a subpoena).
The Delaware Court has shone a small light on the value anonymous bloggers bring to the debate; we need to think of ways to allow trust to filter out to these bloggers who have turned trust, the currency of blogging, on its head.
They may get linked to, they may even put up personal photos (with black bars across their eyes, of course), but the trust some will deserve (and there will be some) has to come from the only thing that really matters in writing, printing, blogging, or any other form of communication - truth.
We have to train on our built-in shock-proof shit detectors to respond to great writing, sharp insight, searing comment, and truth - and not because Nick or Jeff or Oprah or God has linked to a particular blogger. We can't let style or hipness or buzz or Google Ad clicks be our polestars, or we will indeed be lost.
As we start to deify some bloggers and instinctively ignore others, let's remember that Thomas Paine's thunderous declaration regarding "the times that try men's souls" was signed - not entitled - "Common Sense" (the 16 Crisis essays, published between 1776-1783, were all signed, anonymously, "Common Sense").
The Delaware four were likely not concerned with truth but rather ridicule (I haven't read their posts), and obscenity is never called for. But, ironically, those chuckleheads help point the way to the polestar for the Chinese dissident blogging about human-rights abuses, the wife of an Iraqi detainee tortured by US soldiers, the FEMA employee blowing the whistle on truly dangerous chuckleheads.
It's about truth. Let's never forget that.
1 Comments:
Eliot writes, "The Delaware Court has shone a small light on the value anonymous bloggers bring to the debate; we need to think of ways to allow trust to filter out to these bloggers who have turned trust, the currency of blogging, on its head."
This will eventually be the task of editors at trusted, well-branded news sites who work to establish credibility of their own. The BBC's Richard Sambrook spoke directly to this last week when he said the BBC was becomming a "news facilitator."
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