When costs scale with the number of people and revenue doesn't, it's inevitable that zoning will end up discouraging new residential construction, particularly high density residential contruction.

I definitely agree that the ability to make commentary anonymously is, and should be protected. I do not agree that intentionally dishonest commentary should be protected, whether it is anonymous or not.

Not via libel laws, you're not. And that's what this discussion is about. In the U.S., truth is often described as an "absolute defense" against libel.

But this is what I have already said several times: anonymous criticism IS perfectly legal. It's anonymous LIBEL that is not. Criticize all you want, as long as you are telling the truth. But you don't get to legally call somebody a murderer, or a pedophile, or even a thief if you know it isn't true. You keep failing to make the distinction between real criticism and lies.

But again, why should you be able to tell lies about people anonymously? What is the reason?

You should be able to tell the truth anonymously, all you like, with no repercussions. And guess what? Legally, you are. But you still haven't explained to me why you should be able to lie.

Why should there be a different standard for anonymous speech than there is for any other speech? Why should you be given a pass for dishonestly damaging someone's reputation? What possible societal benefit is there to that? I don't see one.

If you tell lies about other people publicly, no matter how much you may dislike them, you should fear retaliation. You have injured that person. And that injury can sometimes be very severe.

But again, as long as you stick to the truth, you are covered. The truth is a defense against libel.

I think your circular argument gives the court too much credit. You assume that there must have been a showing of malice because that is required to prevail against a public figure, and decide that because the court granted the action, there must have been a showing of malice.

Perhaps I am reading the document incorrectly, but it seems to me that the court granted the unmasking action based on the speech having been a factual accusation that Bill Hadley had broken the law. I don't see the question of malice being addressed explicitly in the document, though since it references section 2-615 malice might be covered there.

In any case, even if malice were certain, I do not think it is a good idea to unmask anonymous speakers, even if a court decides that the plantiff would likely prevail in a defamation suit. I feel that the privilege of anonymous criticism of the powerful is precious to our freedom, and I would rather let 1000 liars go unpunished than chill the speech of one Deep Throat.

Look... there have been many legal cases over this issue. Let's say you're a public figure. If the circumstances amount to strong evidence that there is actual malice involved (which does happen sometimes), then the injured party can get information subpoenaed in order to find out who said it. Legally, it's all based on reasonable levels of evidence, not just some ability to willy-nilly subpoena anyone you want.

There was a case in the news not long ago, in fact it was mentioned here on Slashdot. (I'm not going to take the time to look it up, though.) After seeing the evidence, the judge ruled that the plaintiff was likely able to show genuine malice, and so agreed to issue a subpoena for information about who the individual was. If the judge had found insufficient evidence of malice, he would not have issued the subpoena.

Here's a hypothetical example: the writer says, "I'm doing this because I think you're a low-life hateful/awful/dangerous person." (As opposed to, say, "I have evidence you've actually done something wrong.") Or "I'm doing this because you seduced my wife", etc. So for this example, a personal vendetta of some kind. If the statements are false, and the writer admitted that it was done for personal reasons, or personal gain of some kind, that's generally evidence of malice.

But again the point is: there has to be evidence before a subpoena my be legally issued.

They can. The law allows them to. What the law does not allow, is malicious, defamatory speech. As long as you're telling the truth, there is generally nothing to fear: truth is a near-absolute defense against libel. But if you're lying, and especially you're lying for opinion-based or selfish reasons, you'd better watch out.

That's the way it is. And frankly, that's the way it should be.

Quite the opposite. It was run by every major news outlet. It was dinner table talk at my friends house. It was discussed at work. And in general it has gotten a boat load of coverage for something very unsubstantiated.

I'm not saying everyone in the public agreed. They most certainly did not, and given my observer bias of cynical and skeptical people I hang out with I would say most of them didn't believe the story. But that's not the problem, the problem is that this has gotten lip service AT ALL. If something is unsubstantiated then why would it be run by every major news outlet? Why would there be an hour long session on the topic by talk show radios?

People in general have short memories and it doesn't take long to confuse them. That is exactly why public relations campaigns are so effective. You can ruin someone based on nothing very easily, as anyone who has been accused of stalking children on Facebook can attest to. Your common sense does not protect a reputation from public perception.

What you're overlooking is that the unmasking is coming after the court has essentially already declared that the speech in question is defamatory (which isn't a protected class of speech). There have been appeals, the anonymous person has sent lawyers to appeal on multiple occasions (which does make one doubt the "it's some random yahoo" hypothesis - Timmy's parents aren't likely to be footing the bills for lawyers to protect his identity). Reading the ruling, it's pretty clear that Mr. X has effectively *had* his day in court, and the judges are basing this ruling on the fact that they believe the posts in questions to be defamatory.

So the system is working pretty much as intended - "Fuboy" (the alias of the person who posted) has had his identity protected through the entire process, and only after substantial judicial review (which includes the judges deciding if the case has merit and a reasonable chance of success - read: it's actually defamation), has authorized revealing the name. Not to mention that at each step, he's had the ability (and has availed himself) of legal representation to attempt to quash the subpoena.

To your root point, I agree that anonymous speech is valuable. But part of that value is that it can't be used as a shield to hide behind when doing actually illegal things.

Why should you be allowed to intentionally make false, damaging statements about somebody? Anonymously or otherwise? Current law says you don't have the right to do that, and I agree with the law.

Do you think it's okay to "anonymously" shoot somebody with a gun, or "anonymously" run over them with a car? If not, why should you be allowed to injure them any other way anonymously? It makes no sense.

As for "the powerful", if you are a "public figure" you have to show actual malice before you may demand reparations. Because as a public figure, there must be room for the public to comment about your actions.

But that's already the law.

Unjust accusations perhaps used to time out, but they don't now. If your name is linked with child molestation now, on the web, it will be so linked essentially forever. Your only recourse may be to change your name.

Also, you're willing to lose out on a job. Are you willing to lose out on job after job? In any field where the number of applications is greater than the hiring authorities are willing to deal with, doing a quick Google search for every applicant and throwing out the applications when coming up with anything unfavorable is going to be tempting. Employers aren't worried about being fair to the people applying for jobs. They're worried about not getting an incompetent or somebody who's going to disrupt the office or cause serious problems.

Similarly, if customers Google you, you may lose too many of them. If you're working in a customer contact position, your employer may be forced to dismiss you because you're losing too many customers. If you're self-employed, your business may fall off.

I'm not worried about your friends. Either they'll realize that the accusations were false, or they're not worth keeping. I'm worried about your ability to get and hold a good job.

The ability to track down the alleger and sue him or her isn't a perfect solution, but it's better than being able to do nothing about being anonymously maligned.

Short term yes, long term no.

Making a denial is less noise now, but leaves the floor open for our little whisperer to continue throwing allegations around. That's what whisper campaigns and echo chambers are, after all - a continual drip of unsourced comments and allegations, until it becomes something common knowledge that everyone has heard somewhere.

A lawsuit brings attention to useful facts - that the commenter is anonymous (and thus Not Respectable), which damps down the early trouble. And now that he gets a name, there's someone who has to put up or shut up (probably on camera, if Hadley is any sort of good politician). But worst case, he goes from having to defend himself against shadows to having an actual person to rebut.

Except that now all *you're* talking about is whether you're a pedophile. And now you're on the road to "have you stopped beating your wife yet". Whisper campaigns work, unfortunately.

I don't think this even counts as "chilling free speech". Whomever this person is, they're free to repeat their claim once they're name is revealed. And if it's some punk kid in a library, that'll do far more to kill the story than anything he can do otherwise.

Presuming that he's not *actually* a child molester, getting a name to the quote is all up-side for him. Maybe it's a kid who backs down when the cameras ask him to repeat it. Or maybe it'll trace back to a political opponent, and now he's got a whole can of whoop-ass to unload.

You may be willing to pay that price but some people can not afford to pay that price. I see what your opinions are and I am grateful that you have given accurate and honest answers. I am not sure that I agree with you entirely and I, too, do not know how to solve this. I do know that I can easily think of positions that people can realistically be in where they are unable to afford to pay the price of false allegations. This is mostly due to other people who can not think logically or refuse to change their minds once they are made up.