The High Cost of Internet (De)Fame

InfoWorld — If it seems like Notes From the Field is turning into the Notes From the Land of Internet Defamation and Anonymity, my apologies. But this is a topic that I've sunk my teeth into and now I can't seem to unsink them.

After my recent posts about Liskula Cohen ("Skanks for nothing: Google must identify 'anonymous' blogger") and TCI Journal ("Why Internet anonymity matters"), I had the opportunity to chat with attorney Anne W. Salisbury of Guzov Ofsink, LLC. She answered a number of questions I had about both cases, as well as those from some Cringesters who wrote in. So thought I'd share her insights with the rest of you out there in Cringeville.

[ Also on InfoWorld: "Skanks for nothing: Google must identify 'anonymous' blogger" and "Why Internet anonymity matters" | Stay up to date on Robert X. Cringely's musings and observations with InfoWorld's Notes from the Underground newsletter. ]

Salisbury is the attorney who defended then-anonymous Skanks in NYC blogger Rosemary Port in her unsuccessful efforts to keep her identity out of the public eye. (She is not, however, representing Port in her $15 million suit against Google for spilling the beans.)

Among other things, Port called former cover girl Liskula Cohen "a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank" on her short-lived blog. (Salisbury adds that before Cohen's suit became public knowledge, that blog had a handful of page views -- half of them from Salisbury. The morning the news of the lawsuit hit the Web, it clocked 16,000.)

But what does and doesn't constitute defamation is a complicated question, says Salisbury. The answer depends on who's doing the defaming, who's allegedly being defamed, whether it's a statement of fact or clearly an opinion, whether the person making the statement believes it's accurate (even if it isn't), and so on.

For example, if it's a journalist making a statement about a public figure that he or she believes to be true, there's virtually no grounds for a suit. (Which doesn't mean the public figure won't file one anyway; so far, nobody's bothered to sue me, thank God.) If it's a private person spreading public lies about another private person, the defamation factor goes way up. For everything in between, it's a judgment call.

Of course, defining "public figure" or -- in the age of the five-minute blog -- "journalist" is not so simple either. There are only about five cases that can be used as precedent, says Salisbury, and the "test" a particular court chooses has a huge bearing on the outcome of the case.

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