July 31, 2008
Lawyers for 2 Female Students at Yale Law School Learn Identities of Anonymous Online Attackers
Lawyers for two women at Yale Law School who charged a Web site with destroying their reputations have learned the identities of some of the individuals who posted to the site derogatory comments about the women, according to an article Wednesday in Wired.
A year ago the women sued an administrator for the Web site, AutoAdmit, and several others who posted messages to the site under pseudonyms. The messages were filled with misogynist attacks on the women. One message called one of the women a “stupid bitch.” In another, the commenter announced his/her intention to repeatedly sodomize one of the women.
The women who filed the lawsuit have not revealed their identities. They stated in their lawsuit that the online postings caused them to suffer emotionally and professionally.
The Wired article notes that the anonymous posters who have been unmasked by the women’s lawyers could have their fledgling legal careers short-circuited if their names are published in court records.—Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Thursday July 31, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Anyone who intends to pursue a career in law and posts such comments in a public forum deserves to have his/her “legal career short-circuited”. OTOH, we can always use more long-haul truck drivers…perhaps a more fitting career path for people who engage in such behaviors.
— Al Jul 31, 05:26 PM #
I think hateful posts should be viewed and treated by the law as assaults. This past year, one of my undergraduate students was all but destroyed by hateful posts triggered by a column she’d written for the student newspaper. A brilliant, outgoing young woman, she was never able fully to recover from the experience. To add misery to misery, when she began her employment search, she received questions and in some cases snide comments from potential employers who had done internet searches of her.
— Val Aug 1, 06:25 AM #
We might want to consider ‘unmasking’ students who make such comments on Rate My Professor. Many of the comments that I have read there have nothing to do with how a course is taught but instead serve as a spleen venting session.
Seems to me that a few lawsuits against those who engage in such unseemly behavior would put the brakes on online slander or libel or whatever it is in the eyes of the law.
— Ann Aug 1, 07:15 AM #
Long-haul truck drivers are, as a whole, a better class of people than lawyers.
— LuckyJim Aug 1, 07:16 AM #
Many of the threads on the forums board at the Chronicle are angry and spteful as well. What about unmasking the posters on the mobbing thread? This is the pot calling the kettle black.
— tom Aug 1, 07:43 AM #
The internet – and the anonymity it provides – has produced a generation of people who think they can hide behind it and engage in all kinds of behavior that would not be accepted were its perpetrators known. I agree with Val, the poster who says that people who post hateful, vitriolic things on the web (regardless of where they are – here on the Chronicle, too) should be unmasked. But it’s not just the college students. I have read some of the most hateful posts in the past week, responding to the recent death of conservative Tony Snow and diagnosis of brain cancer in fellow conservative columnist Bob Novak. I was appalled at the things these people wrote – saying that these deaths and illnesses proved “there was a God,” wishing suffering and death on Mr. Novak and others like him, etc. I’d lay money these writers were well out of college. We can hardly expect our young people to behave well under cover of anonymity, when the generations ahead of them do not.
— Ergum Soloff Aug 1, 07:55 AM #
To Al,
What do you have against long haul truck drivers?
They perform a necessary service to keep goods moving throughout our country. The next time you eat a Florida orange or a strawberry from California, you can thank a long haul truck driver.
We would be in a sad state without them.
And many of them are hard working, good people who are just trying to make an honest living.
Why even bring them into this?
— an observer Aug 1, 08:51 AM #
I share the concerns of those who decry the spiteful, hatefilled posts that often appear anonomously on-line. Two thoughts occur to me, however (neither of which are intended to excuse the wrongful posters and both of which are perhaps ill-formed in their current expression):
1. We need to be less inclined to credit such posts with legitimacy in our formal decision-making processes. I grow increasingly frustrated with our almost supine acquience to the notion that “perception is reality” when in fact we can shape our perceptions much more actively. Let’s demand of ourselves that we make judgments that are more based on facts and data than on perceptions and innuendo. As an administrator, I am fed up with “management by character assasination”, which seems to be what occured to the women in this situation.
2. I am trying to strengthen my own ability to ignore, challenge appropriately or otherwise neutralize the kind of attacks that are so common-place in academia (this is my best approximation of what my father taught me – he always told me I had to toughen up if I wanted to be successful in the world – a variation on the theme that “…there’s no crying in baseball…”)
In an ideal world, we would not have to deal with these kinds of attacks. However, human nature being what it is, we will always have the spiteful and hateful among us. In academia we should strive a little harder to curb our own tendencies to feed the vitriol by engaging in more civil discourse.
Despite my general tendency to decry legal actions, this is one time when I am more likely to side with those who call for stiff penalties exacted through the expensive, time-consuming and often painful process of litigation. Slander and libel deserve to be treated as crimes.
By the way, my brother was an honorable long-haul truck driver. He did not speak about others in the way the way described in this article. Let’s not engage in reverse stereotyping.
— Rick Aug 1, 08:53 AM #
It would behoove people to remember that when you post something on the internet, “you’re broadcasting, baby (to qoute a local radio show).”
— Michelle Aug 1, 09:19 AM #
We all know, or at least have heard, that freedom comes with responsibility. If we cherish our freedom of speech, as most of us do, it is imperative that we understand that we have the responsibility to use it in a civil manner. If we don’t understand this, we could lose that freedom altogether. When I read that someone wants a law that punishes verbal bullies, I understand why, but I become afraid that we are beginning to go down a slippery slope toward speech control that no one really wants.
One of the outcomes we strive to achieve with students is that they behave ethically once they enter the professional world. In our discussions with students we point out that “legal” does not necessarilly mean “ethical”. The verbal mistreatment of someone (including our elected officials and their advisors), while it is possibly protected by law, is not ethical and must be discouraged. One of the best ways to do that is to set the example by being civil in our own discourse. I agree with previous posters who point out that even on this forum we have an overabundance of nasty rhetoric. Disagreement does not have to be personal. Refrain from posting inane, sophomoric tripe. We should be far above that.
— FB Aug 1, 09:42 AM #
Val and Other Profs,
Pls instruct your students that its a tough world out there. If one chooses to expose oneself (or one’s ideas) via a published work, one ought not have too thin a skin. So, be prepared for name-calling and other rude behavior. That’s just the way it is.
— Innocent By-Stander Aug 1, 10:28 AM #
I am going to hire a lawyer to find out the true identity of Al (Post No.1). My wife is a long-haul truck driver and not only did Al insult her for no good reason, he also ruined her career. PS. I’m only kidding. I thought this site needed a little levity.
— Bill Aug 1, 10:28 AM #
It’s interesting that the anonymous posters aren’t denying that they did what they’ve been accused of doing. They just don’t want to accept responsibility for their actions.
This has nothing to do with speech control or mind control or thought control. It has everything to do with self-control, not an outstanding trait today. Freedom of speech does not include the right to disregard the rights of others. Libel is libel, and the internet confers no immunity.
Part of the underlying problem, I suspect, is that an entire generation has been pumped full of self-esteem. Self-respect, on the other hand, must be earned. These twits think they have a license to say and do anything they like, regardless of the consequences to anyone else or to themselves when they get called on their irresponsibility.
Some of us are old enough to remember when truckers would flash their lights to let passing cars know it was safe to pull over right. Those days are long gone. Too bad.
— Dan Aug 1, 10:57 AM #
Regarding anonymous postings, Mr. Novak outted a CIA agent citing anonymous sources, later discovered to be Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armistead, no doubt acting on orders from the Vice President of the United States. All three men escaped prosecution for a federal crime punishable by death. And someone’s not allowed to say “hateful” things about them?
— Didi Pontiac Aug 1, 11:17 AM #
I do think it is possible to hate the actions of people like Novak without sinking to their level by making equally hateful statements. Hey – I was no fan of the Reagans – but when his Alzheimer’s Disease was finally confirmed (I suspect long after it had begun to affect his performance), my heart went out to him and his family. Similarly, if Novak’s turns out to be malignant, I will have nothing but compassion for him as he goes thru a really rocky future – but the compassion won’t make me admire him as a person.
— TDD Aug 1, 12:44 PM #
I think people are forgetting that these were misogynist postings. There is a BIG difference between disagreeing with one’s data or opinions, but when the attacks are specific to your gender or race, it’s a form of hate speech. I for one can verify how common this is and how widely “accepted” (in that I rarely see it countered).
I have seen rape accusers called outrageous names. Victims (prostitutes) of serial killers called derogatory names while the serial killer gets a super-hero name (The Green River killer sounds like the Incredible Hulk, doesn’t it?) and no negative comments whatsoever.
As women, we have an “added” contempt. Women human rights defenders have certain attacks against them b/c they are female – they can be sexually harassed, raped, have their reputations ruined, etc (quite different/supplemental to how male HR defenders are attacked). The same can be said of female writers. I have been the target of the misogynist Father’s Righters – they are vicious. I have just contacted my editor to see what can be done. I know to expect it – anyone who writes negatively about them does – but it can be downright nasty, degrading and obsessive.
I have seen too many female writers “opt out” of writing b/c the misogynist comments. It needs to be countered.
— Jomada Aug 1, 01:12 PM #
What the article doesn’t mention is that the women have also been sued for wrongly suing an innocent person they later dropped from their lawsuit. The case against the women defendants is pending in federal court in Pennsylvania.
— ohai Aug 3, 03:59 PM #
For anyone who’s interested…
A copy of the Yale students’ civil complaint can be found here
http://randazza.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/another-amended-complaint-in-the-auto-admit-case
A copy of Ciolli’s countersuit against the Yale students can be found here:
http://abovethelaw.com/images/IravaniComplaint.pdf
— haio Aug 6, 06:25 PM #