How Anonymous Are You Really When You Blog?

Here is some food for thought for those of you out there, me included, who blog and say things that may or may not be considered defamatory.

A model, Liskula Cohen, has successfully sued Google for the name of an anonymous blogger who she alleges defamed her on a blog hosted by Google. The blog was called Skanks in NYC. The essence of the defamation case is that the anonymous blogger called Cohen a "skank" and an "old hag".

The anonymous blogger identified Cohen as the "skankiest in NYC". This was then followed with, "How old is this skank? 40 something? She's a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank." I am guessing that this does not leave much to one's imagination. Is it defamatory? On face value, probably.

However, there are defenses to defamation that if the decision survives appeal, assuming there is one, then the anonymous blogger would likely be arguing an extension of what the blogger's lawyer has put forward so far, namely: this was mere opinion and "trash talk" rather than any intent to defame. The extension here would be to argue that, in essence, what has been said is in fact true.

Judge Joan Madden has ruled in favour of Cohen and has ordered that Google must provide the name of the anonymous blogger. It is expected that the name of the anonymous blogger is to be revealed in court as a means of allowing Cohen to proceed with her defamation action against the currently anonymous blogger. According to Judge Madden the assertions made were that Cohen was sexually promiscuous and the accompanying photos on the blog bore this intent out sufficiently well.

Cohen's modelling career was seemingly cut short when she was glassed in 2007. The resulting injuries required 46 stitches to close the wounds. Cohen was glassed when she objected to some drunk bloke stealing a bottle of vodka off her table. The bloke decided his best course of action in response to this objection was to glass Cohen in the face. The bloke was sent to jail, and deservedly so.

The case is interesting because of the potential implications. These implications are that anyone who thinks they are blogging anonymously may not be so anonymous after all. There are undoubtedly many techno savvy individuals out there with the knowledge and means of ratcheting up their anonymity to make discovery of their true identities even more difficult or impossible.

I am not one of them. I have enough trouble just using the features of blogger to be worried about whether I am anonymous or not. That said, I am using my real name to blog. So, if I have defamed you then you know where I reside in cyberspace.

There is a belief that this decision will open the floodgates to litigation and defamation claims based on comments written online that people do not agree with. This would seemingly be the case.

It is worth noting that the blog in question was shut down in March of this year. The blog contained only five entries and all of them related to Cohen. My guess is that the anonymous blogger is likely someone she knows or someone she has had some acquaintance with. Alternatively, it is, or was, a cyber-stalker which is a scary thought.

Something for all you anonymous bloggers out there to consider is this statement from Google:

"We sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order." So, make sure you re-read the privacy statement from Google again if you thought what you clicked guaranteed your absolute privacy.

Food for thought.

Most office workers would be better off in prison

I have gotta say that I rarely cut and past full articles of things that I find on the Internet.

This is not because of copyright (although perhaps I should be more conscious of this) but because it is not usually the case I need the whole piece to illustrate a point.

This "opinion" piece is written by Nury Vittachi. Nury is the writer of the "Travellers' Tales" column in the Far Eastern Economic Review (or at least was at one time).

This particular opinion piece was published in the Jakarta Post here.

The whole opinion piece sounds like a sociological study waiting to happen. My view is that Nury should volunteer to spend a couple of weeks or a month in prison. This would give him a valuable insight to what prison is really like.

He then could write a follow-up piece titled, "Why Office Workers Are Better Off Not in Prison".

My guess is that if a prisoner is waving at you through the bars and giving you the full salute with something other than his hand then this is likely not something that is indicative of happiness but a gentlemen with no other outlets to express himself. Although, Nury states that looking through the bars helped to put his life into perspective. I am hoping that perspective is that no matter how much working in an office might suck, it sure as hell beats doing a stint in prison.

Nope, I somehow doubt that as an office worker I would prefer to be in prison.

Anyway, my view is that this Nury taking the piss, a tongue in cheek look at the things he hates about his office. Nevertheless, it is called an opinion piece and it follows here in full:

I used to live near a prison. There was a guy on the top floor who used to wave his hand at me through the bars. Actually, it wasn't just his hand.

But the thing that struck me was that he always looked so happy. For some reason, this annoyed me intensely. I wanted to shout:you: Stop being happy." But then I realized that I would sound like my former employers, who were always hollering that at me.

Looking through the barred windows as I walked past, I absorbed numerous lessons which helped me put my life into perspective.

In prison, he spends most of his time confined to a space measuring three meters by three metres.

At the office, I spend most of my time confined to a cubicle measuring 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters.

In prison, he gets a healthy, early night every night.

At the office, I work late so often I'll probably end up with an ulcer.

In prison, he gets time off for good behavior.

At the office, I get extra work assignments for good behavior.

In prison, he gets all the food and drink he needs prepared for him by trained catering staff, three times a day, seven days a week.

At the office, I can help myself to free water from the water cooler.

In prison, he can watch television and read through a library of books.

At the office, I'll get sacked if I get caught watching a clip on YouTube.

In prison, he'll spend a lot of time in quiet contemplation about the important things in life.

In the office, mindless inconsequential activity fills my every second.

In prison, he gets a toilet to himself.

At the office, I share a toilet with a building-full of people less toilet-trained than my pets.

At the office, I spend more money than I can afford making sure my clothing matches that of my colleagues.

In prison, everyone gets free, color co-ordinated outfits.

In prison, there are sadistic, evil creatures called warders who will torment him.

In office life, there are sadistic, evil creatures called employers who torment me.

In prison, one's working days are short and sweet.

In my working life, I arrive at the office before the sun has risen and leave after it's dark.

In prison, he doesn't have to take work home with him.

In my job, I arrive every morning with a fat briefcase and leave with a fatter one.

In prison, he never has to worry about paying bills for utilities and other things.

In the life of a modern office-worker, I worry about paying bills all the time.

At the office, I spend hours every day wading through a sea of spam.

In prison, he just gets one small square of Spam a week, on Tuesdays, with a side salad.

In my work life, I pay a fortune for a gym membership, but never have time to go.

In prison, the gym is free and he has plenty of incentive to keep himself in good shape, especially when taking a shower.

In my office life, I often feel pressured to be in three different places at once.

In prison, this is probably not really an issue.

The writer is a journalist and columnist. He can be reached at www.vittachi.com

The Indonesian Elections

I have been planning on writing a few things about the coming Indonesian elections and the most likely presidential candidates. It is a topic that is frequently discussed in the circles in which I roam and it is a topic that some people have been trying to encourage me to write about. As a matter of fact I was chatting to the Treespotter at 03.00 this morning on this very topic. He has posted an introductory piece here. My concern is whether I can pull off what will surely be a rant as some kind of op-ed piece? I am not sure that I can or that I will, but then again should I really care? After all it is my blog, they are my opinions, and I am what I am!

The proposal is to write a series of rants on prospective presidential candidates. The posts are not really designed to be authoritative in terms of referencing. They will though include things that I have heard around the traps and that are on record (some journalistic integrity).But, mainly the pieces will be personal opinion (rants) as I see the events of our times.

I do not have that many readers, but I am sure that I will undoubtedly offend some of you.

Happy Reading all the same!