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Anonymous Political Pamphleteering (Blogging) Is Like Graffiti Under The Bridge

October 26th, 2005 by Jim Kukral

Or so says the Delaware State Supreme Court, see below.

‘George W. Bush is gay’ is written on the overpass of a bridge that I pass under every day on the way to work. Of course, we all know George W. Bush isn’t gay, yet, there is the comment, out there for thousands to read each day while they sip their Starbucks and put on their makeup while driving up 77 North into downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

I see this comment every day, and every day I think about it and why someone would write it in that spot, and I wonder what is their motive for doing so, yet, despite my attempts to over think it, and the unavoidable path I must drive to work each morning that leads me past it, I still don’t believe the alleged claim.

Why? Because it’s graffiti of course. I mean, who gives credence to anonymous criminal activities involving defacement of state property other than the criminals themselves, I suppose? If we believed everything we read that was written outdoors in Krylon we’d be seeing ads from Sony and Google appearing on a your neighborhood dumpster soon enough. Graffiti artists would be akin to Subway ‘Sandwich Artists’, and a whole new profession would be started where young, Eminem-type youths would ’sell-out’ to become the next famous port-o-potty tattoo-ist, extrapolating six-figure contracts from Fortune 500 firms looking to cash in on the latest, greatest new media buy.

So you tell me, if I created an anonymous blog on Blogger.com today called the “George W. Bush Is Gay Blog” (which I just made in less than 1 minute completely anonymously); how is that different from graffiti on a bridge? I can post it to the search engines, other bloggers can link to it, and nobody, not even Blogger.com knows it was me who made the blog.

Right. It’s not different, except for the fact that creating an anonymous blog isn’t a crime (yet) as is defacing public property. But you get the idea? Anonymity isn’t the problem when it comes to blogging or graffiti. They are only the delivery of the message.

Yet, it seems to me that anonymity is under trial lately. Specifically on the Internet, where the battle rages on, now, with blogs as the main focus of the First Amendment interpretation.

According to the story ‘Court rules in favor of anonymous blogger in defamation claim‘.

The Delaware Supreme Court rejected a town councilman’s quest to find out who posted obscenity-laden tirades about him on the Internet, saying free speech concerns outweighed the politician’s argument that he was defamed.

The decision Wednesday reversed a lower court ruling ordering an Internet service provider to disclose the identity of four anonymous posters to a blog site operated by Independent Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Delaware State News.

The posted entries, among other things, accused Smyrna councilman Patrick Cahill of “obvious mental deterioration” and used the name “Gahill” to suggest that he is homosexual.

In June, the lower court ruled that Cahill had established a “good faith basis” for contending that he and his wife were victims of defamation, and it affirmed a previous order for Comcast Cable Communications to disclose the bloggers’ identities.

But Chief Justice Myron Steele likened anonymous Internet speech to anonymous political pamphleteering, a practice the U.S. Supreme Court characterized in 1995 as “an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent.” Accordingly, Steele wrote, a court should not order the unmasking of an anonymous Internet poster unless a plaintiff offers strong proof of defamation.

“We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously,” Steele wrote. “The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all.”

Steele also noted that plaintiffs in such cases can use the Internet to respond to character attacks and “generally set the record straight,” and that, as in Cahill’s case, blogs and chatrooms tend to be vehicles for people to express opinions, not facts.

“Given the context, no reasonable person could have interpreted these statements as being anything other than opinion. … The statements are, therefore, incapable of a defamatory meaning,” he wrote.

David Finger, an attorney representing a blogger who challenged the lower court ruling, said the Supreme Court decision helps protect bloggers and all citizens against suits filed only to intimidate them.

So who won here? The anonymous blogger won, and lost. They won because they didn’t get fingered, and they lost because the ruling decided to write off blogs as “vehicles for people to express opinions, not facts”.

So I blame you, you anonymous political pamphleteers, for ruining us bloggers’ chances at being more than just opinion filled web rags. Of course, this is just my pamphleteer opinion, albiet not anonymous.

2 Comments | Filed under: Online Publishing

2 Comments

Jeff Molander said:

Excellent piece, Jim. Interesting, yet not surprising, that so many people still find terms like term “gay” ad/or being a homosexual to be so gosh darned powerful. It reminds me of being in Junior High School and using vulgar terms without even fully understanding what they meant - we just knew they were derogatory so fire away!

Also interesting that you would pick this topic on the heels of a Revenews blogger deleting an anonymous post and then chastising the person who had posted it. Perhaps this censorship-loving blogger learned something from your entry today

October 27th, 2005 at 2:27 pm

Beth Kirsch said:

Newspapers don’t publish annoymous letters to the editor because they understand comments are much more powerful and relevent if someone is willing to go on the record. Does that mean censureship, no. I means that newspapers believe that cival debate occurs when people stand by their opinions.

There are two powerful sides to this argument and both have their place. Therefore it seems to me the call is the blogger’s.

November 1st, 2005 at 3:24 am