Anonymous no more, blogger Rosemary Port is in the midst of two legal disputes: defending a defamation suit against New York model Liskula Cohen and pursuing her own suit against Google for naming her as the individual behind the purportedly defaming comments on her blog, “Skanks of NYC.”
The nitty gritty details are discussed in this NY Daily News story, but in summary, Port posted on her blog that Cohen was “old hag” and a “psychotic lying whore.” Ouch. It seems the bad blood between these two stems from Cohen trash talking about Port to an ex-boyfriend. Oh no she di’int!
As an attorney and a blogger, you know I have an opinion.
Legally, I think that though Cohen may have felt defamed by Port’s post, there is the argument that she is only garnering further attention, that may in fact help her modeling career, by bringing the suit. In addition, by publicizing the comments via this lawsuit, she is drawing more attention to the comments. The basic defense to a defamation suit is to show that there the defaming remarks are true. Port stands behind her statement, no pun intended, by pointing to highly suggestive photos posted by Cohen herself, showing her with a man standing behind her and her on all fours. If the clear Lucite platform heel fits…
From the perspective of a blogger, I can understand Port’s beef with Google. I have had my own issues with wanting to protect my identity as a blogger. A blog can be a pretty personal thing, a journal of an internal dialogue, posted to garner support or inspire others. In this sense, I think an anonymous blogger has a irrevocable right to privacy.
On the flip side, a blog can also be a means of attacking others, for petty or sometimes very real reasons. It is a cowardly thing to hide behind the label of “anonymous,” when you are making derrogatory and accusatory statements about others. If you have the cahones to say it, have the cahones to own it. If you are not willing to stand by your words, perhaps you don’t believe them as much as you would anonymously purport to.
Any any event, ladies, let’s leave the catfights off the internet, and save them for in-person. There’s a better chance to get a nice wig tug in there anyhow.
I think that claiming anonymity can be a cowardly thing, but destroying anonymity if it is not your own is far more unacceptable.
Actually, I take that back – I just had a think about the kind of things that are said anonymously. Maybe some people deserve to be exposed.
On the other hand, part of anonymous commenting is that it has (in my mind) a lot less weight than attributed commenting. Hazy middle ground arises for constructed pseudonymous identities. I think the more the person has invested in the identity the more loaded the question becomes.
wow- if you could sue someone for every crappy thing they annonymously posted about you on the internet, us bloggers would all be millionaires.
from my online writing, I have come to accept than a large portion of the people that use the internet use it as a way to just be shitty to other people without having to say it to their faces. That said, its usually the commenters I deal with. I write so that people will read it, and when i say something controversial, I expect to get a reaction. I will also always put my name on it, because if i dont stand by my stance, whats the point of putting it out there?
Name calling serves no purpose and is a cop out for not having anything interesting to say- but i dont think she should have to pay for it.
as for google outing her, that sucks big time. i dont know how big her blog is because ive never heard of it, but if she can prove that them doing so impacted her income, she totally has a right to sue.