Outed Blogger Plans To Sue Google; Skank Model Mess Gets Messier

from the fun-to-watch-from-the-sidelines dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how model Liskula Cohen bizarrely sued "sought pre-action discovery from" Google on an anonymous blogger for putting up a blog that referred to Cohen as a skank, an old hag, a "ho" and a few other choice phrases. Of course, pretty much no one would have seen such a blog if Cohen hadn't gone legal about it, claiming (with no proof) that she was losing jobs because of it (which seems difficult to believe). We were disappointed that a judge found the insults on the blog to be "defamatory," and ordered Google to reveal the blogger -- which it did. However, the now revealed blogger, Rosemary Port, is now pissed off and planning to sue Google for $15 million for exposing her.

As much as I agree that she should have been able to remain anonymous, I'm not sure what legal grounds Port has to make such a claim. Her attorney says Google: "breached its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity," which hardly seems likely to stand up in court. Google had no such fiduciary duty, and was ordered by a court to give up the name. Her lawyer is right in noting that anonymity is "inherent in the First Amendment" (and many courts have found this to be true), but that has nothing to do with Google. Google is not the US gov't and the First Amendment doesn't apply to Google. I would have no problem with a lawsuit appealing the ruling to reveal Port's name, but that's not a lawsuit against Google. Bad lawsuits begat bad lawsuits.

Separately, Cohen's own lawyer is claiming that Cohen is dropping the defamation lawsuit against Port (which is not what she was claiming last week) and the whole thing seems to have descended into screaming back and forth -- with arguments over who should forgive whom.

But there is one other interesting tidbit. We've pointed out how ridiculous the original lawsuit was, as it only called that much more attention to Cohen and the idea that someone finds her "skanky." Port claims that probably the only two people who saw the site prior to the lawsuit were Port and Cohen. When it was pointed out that this whole lawsuit brought a lot more attention to the idea of Cohen as a "skank," Cohen's lawyer claims "If we had thought for a minute that the Google case would have brought more attention to the anonymous blogger's site, we never would have started it." Perhaps that's true, but if it is, Cohen and her lawyer seem particularly clueless about how the internet works and how news spreads.

In the end, this whole thing has the feel of a big publicity stunt, wasting public resources and the court system to get both Cohen, and now Port, a bunch of free media coverage. Basically, we have back and forth lawsuits that are really just attention-grabbing attempts by people who felt "insulted" by others' actions. Despite Port's claims that the founding fathers wanted to preserve her right to privacy, this legal mud-wresting contest is probably not what they had in mind.

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Tech Columnist Calls Model 'A Hero' For Exposing Anonymous Blogger

from the someone-should-explain-the-first-amendment dept

Last we checked in on David Coursey, a long-time tech columnist, he was claiming that The Pirate Bay made money selling subscriptions to users and didn't seem to understand the difference between "theft" and "infringement" or the difference between a search engine and a user. So... I guess we shouldn't really be all that surprised that he's about the only person around who seems to think it was a good thing that a court forced an anonymous blogger to be revealed for referring to model Liskula Cohen as a skank. Apparently, Coursey is unfamiliar with the fact that the US has a strong history of protecting anonymous speech as a part of our First Amendment rights, and this ruling seems to go against that entirely. And, yes, you can be unmasked for truly defamatory speech, but calling someone a skank hardly qualifies. And, of course, he doesn't even acknowledge the fact that almost no one would have seen that particular anonymous blogspot blog if Cohen hadn't freaked out and sued.

It's difficult to see how that makes her a "hero." Thin-skinned? Short-sighted? Perhaps. Hero? Please.

Oh yeah, Coursey then goes on to suggest this should be a warning sign for Google to start censoring the blogs it hosts:

It should also make Google take a hard look at the kinds of sites its Blogger service is willing to host. A "Skanks of NYC" blog may give jealous people a chance to vent their frustration, but hardly seems to ennoble the human spirit.

I don't know. I think Coursey's column should make PC World take a long hard look at the kinds of columns it's willing to host (and, one imagines, pay for). A David Coursey column may give a clueless tech columnist a chance to state his opinion with little knowledge of the facts or history, but hardly seems to ennoble the human spirit. (And, yes, I'm joking, but the point is that this is almost, but not quite, as ridiculous as Coursey suggesting Google needs to monitor and censor blogs).

By the way, the Coursey column does reveal that the anonymous blogger was revealed to Cohen, and it was some woman she didn't know (big surprise there). So, I'm curious how this is a good thing for anyone involved or how Cohen is somehow a hero. If she ignored this site, no one would have seen it or cared (and those who saw it wouldn't have thought that it was some sort of NY Times report on the skankiness of Liskula Cohen). They would have dismissed it as a lame venting from someone who didn't like Cohen for whatever reason. But, now with a lawsuit, lots of people aren't just questioning whether or not Cohen is "a skank" but about her rather sensitive reaction to the slightest criticism from a nobody. How does that make Cohen better off?

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Judge Says Blogger Who Called Model A Skank Should Be Unmasked

from the anonymity? dept

US courts have generally been pretty good at protecting the anonymity of online speech from forced exposure -- in fact, as we're posting this story, we've come across yet another ruling protecting anonymous speech online. However, every so often a judge goes in the other direction. Earlier this year, we wrote about a case involving a model, Liskula Cohen, who was so upset about a blog that had a grand total of four posts insulting her, that she filed a lawsuit to uncover the anonymous blogger, claiming that it was defamatory to call her a "skank." Of course, most of us would never have heard of the blog, its posts, Liskula Cohen or that anyone thought she was a "skank" until this lawsuit was filed. But that's another issue for another day.

However, CitMediaLaw alerts us to the news that the judge in the case has ruled that calling Liskula Cohen a "skank" is potentially defamatory, and not just an opinion or an everyday insult, and thus the blogger should be unmasked:

But Madden found that use of the terms "skank," "skanky," "ho" and "whoring" defamed Cohen because they appeared in captions near photos of the model in provocative poses. "Under these circumstances," Madden wrote, the words combined with the suggestive photos "carry a negative implication of sexual promiscuity."

Madden also rejected the blogger's contention that the words were vague insults. "In the context of this specific blog, such words cannot be reasonably viewed as comparable in meaning and usage to the word 'jerk' or any other loose and vague insult," Madden held.

While certainly not the most high brow of insults, it's difficult to think that anyone reading the blog posts in question would take from it that it is somehow factual that Cohen was actually sexually promiscuous. I would imagine that the very small number of people who actually saw the site would conclude, accurately, that some unknown, anonymous blogger didn't like Cohen very much and posted a very small number of silly blog posts about her. And then they'd get on with their lives. Hopefully, the still (for now) anonymous blogger decides to appeal. Yes, the speech may have been nasty and obnoxious. But that doesn't warrant the gov't and Cohen forcing the blogger to be revealed.

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Model Sues Google Because Some People Are Just So Mean

from the suck-it-up dept

I still haven't quite figured out why people think that it's illegal to be a jerk, but there's just some part of people's brains that makes them believe that if they don't like something, it simply must be illegal. A model named Liskula Cohen is apparently really, really peeved that there are some mean people online who have been making fun of her, and she's suing Google to get the company to reveal the identity of those mean, mean jerks. Of course, in doing so, Cohen has only called that much more attention to the fact that some random anonymous internet losers think she's "skanky."

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