Asymmetric personal warfare
Mar 16, 2007 Lex scripta, Medialites
Have you ever heard of AutoAdmit? It’s the next level in the institutionalization of online slander.
I wrote last year about something I called asymmetric cultural warfare, to wit:
In the old days, cranks and complainers and scandalmongers of this ilk used to peddle such wares via stolen reams of photocopy paper or purple mimeograph printouts. Mailed anonymously or pinned up on storefronts they were easily enough recognized as the rantings of marginal people; once pulled down and crumpled up, they were gone forever, and usually rightfully so.
Now we know not to believe everything we read in a blog, of course. No one thinks any more that if it’s on the Internet, “there must be something to it.” But slander has a way of sticking, especially when it is directed to those whose stations or dignity do not make response appropriate or practical. And the virtual eternity of anonymous defamation makes it more insidious than anything that preceded it. Potential employers, spouses or in-laws, business partners — anyone who can work Google can forever gain access to and read the rankest falsehood on the Internet.
The cost to the anonymous hit-blogger, or commenter: Free. The effect on people, institutions, communities: Unfathomable.
They say that a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I have argued that this is true of libertarianism, as well, which I consider the animating political spirit of the Internet. Traditional economists argue for government or collectivist intervention in economies where “externalities” — costs borne by others not a direct party to economic decision-making — are not “properly” incorporated into cost decisions made by the market. Libertarians reject this by insisting on a proper allocation of property rights and responsibilities.
How do you do this in the new world of asymmetrical cultural or information warfare? How can property rights and penalties for their violation be properly allocated and enforced in a world of anonymity and where there are zero costs to instantly uttering thoughts, accusations and claims that can be consumed by millions, capable of destroying lives? And is there no value to the virtues of civilized discourse, of accountability for what one says in all the senses of the word?
This (AutoAdmit and its ilk) is the problem I described in action, affecting real lives. Not in a good way. What are we going to do about it? I suggest we roll back the law of defamation so that it is once again a viable cause of action*, and perhaps reconsider the application of the American rule to defamation litigation (which would discourage meritless claims). It will not solve the problem of anonymity, but it will at least place some cost on wrongdoers.
Via Ann Althouse at Instapundit.
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* Uh, don’t mention that I suggested this to anyone at Overlawyered. They always take these ideas the wrong way.
UPDATE: The latest.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Hmm, I don’t know. It’s not clear at all that those nasty posts were the reasons that woman didn’t get the job. You’ve made quite a big leap there.
I’m really torn on this one because I know it’s not pleasant to have dirt out there, number one on google.
But is there a solution? Yours doesn’t work for me.
Maybe when everyone’s dirt is googleable, people will stop believing this anonymous stuff.
Or maybe not.
IN any case, another poster over at Althouse makes the point that at least these days we know what’s being said about us whereas in the past you often didn’t.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Why doesn’t my solution “work for” you, TF?
I don’t need to make a leap — it doesn’t matter what exactly happened this time. I’m talking about the entire phenomenon. If you don’t think real people are being hurt by it, you are mistaken.
I’d go with “maybe not.” It almost doesn’t matter if it’s believed. It’s out there forever. The smudge may never come off.
You have chosen to maintain your anonymity on the Internet. Maybe that’s a solution. We’ll all be anonymous so no one can say anything about us!
March 16th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
How many people do you know who’ve sued over something written on a bathroom wall?
I think you exaggerate the number of “lives destroyed” by this kind of stuff. In most cases, it is unpleasant but trivial and fairly easily addressed.
And when it is truly serious, there is indeed legal recourse as there always has been.
Anonymous speech is and always has been, however, an important part of free speech.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
None, Tearfree. But I know plenty who have sued, and who have approached me professionally to discuss suing, because of genuine anguish and damage that has been done to them by Internet defamation. I don’t know how many lives you think have to be — okay, not destroyed, but harmed — to make the problem cognizable.
There is no legal resource against the anonymous, unless and until their anonymity is stripped. Sometimes the law helps you do that. Sometimes it can’t, or won’t.
March 16th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Well, anonymous speech is specifically protected by the USSC (See here, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission for political speech).
If the speech involved crosses the line into slander, there are laws to address that, including the legally enforced breaching of anonymity by an ISP on the part of a plaintiff. That strikes me as adequate protection of repute.
I do understand that there’s no practical way to ‘unring a bell’. But one can seek damages to help assuage the pain. And perhaps part or all of the damages could be used to pay for an advertising campaign to counter the defamation. This is, of course, the remedy for identified speed already.
March 16th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
As you know, John, anonymous speech is not given special protection. It is given the same level of protection; anonymity itself is also protected. This of course is a gloss on the First Amendment. There is no mention of anonymity in the Constitution, nor of the virtually unmeetable actual malice test, which the Republic managed without for most of its life.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I have mixed feelings about your assertions here. Considering the preponderance of evidence frame of reference that you live in, I will agree with your assertion that this stuff MIGHT be a problem worth worrying about. By maybe 52% to 48%.
But I don’t understand your claim that this stuff is being institutionalized. It still just seems like gossip to me.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
[...] Coleman describes these anonymous hit-and-run incidents as a form of “asymmetric personal warfare” in which the slanderer has all the advantages, and can leave a trail of wreckage [...]
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December 12th, 2008 at 10:20 am
[...] Maybe that’s why we’re not-so-pro-choice here. (We happen to reject the nomenclature anyway so don’t get us started.) Not “everybody” should have “the right to” Internet anonymity. We’ve long objected to the anonymity premise, because because not nearly enough weight is assigned its potential costs in a modern communication regime, as opposed to in the pre-Internet era. [...]