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.

Yes. Some. Dare I say a vast minority. Given how we're constantly hearing about some blunder in the industry about popular media outlets running with a false story because they don't check their sources it's a real problem. It's beyond the general stupid masses. Even some of the smarter people will typically have some media outlets who they think are "trustworthy" and then take stories on face value. It doesn't take much for a slip-up to screw someone's life.

Heck the general public has gone bat shit crazy only last week on revelations that Snowden has compromised national security because the Russians and the Chinese now have American secrets. Or so pretty much every major news outlet has repeated based on some anonymous source that talked to a single paper.

Just no. If the statement was made publicly, and the the speaker should reasonably have known it was false, then they must be subject to the law. Damage may already be done! You'd give people a pass to hit-and-run.

I will not endorse such a scheme.

Reporter investigation? What's that?

No seriously for the most part investigations are a thing of the past. We live in a world where everyone is a live reporter themselves. An accusation gets made and moments later it hits twitter, Facebook etc, and millions of people know you as a paedophile. Then you come out through a reputable news agency and millions of people will think "Of course he says that, he's trying to hid the fact he's a paedophile!". When things go REALLY south you may even find reputable news agencies pick up what's making the round on twitter as fact, and then your Wikipedia page will have that listed as well complete with references to the media.

Anonymous Cowards can do a lot of damage in the modern media because the masses in general are stupid. Heck last week someone took a selfie of themselves against some poster, and some white knight though he was taking a snap of a child sitting further away, took his photo and it was shared several 10s of thousands of times on Facebook until someone AT HIS WORK mentioned it.

And history shows pretty clearly that you are.

Libel laws did not arise out of some lawmaker's whim. They developed over a very long time, and for very good societal reasons.

Knowingly and intentionally (not the same things) making false statements about somebody can do real damage to his or her reputation, livelihood, family life, etc. I mean real damage, in the same sense as a broken leg is damage. Once that's done, maybe they won't have the resources to fight back. Clearly that would be a one-sided situation favoring the "false witness". That's why there are legal remedies.

Of course legal remedies aren't a panacea. It takes money, time, and effort to sue somebody. That's why sometimes even if it really is libel, and really can be proved, and the injured party really does want to sue, he or she may not be reasonably able to at any given time for a number of reasons.

Free speech does not imply freedom from the consequences of your speech. If you make untrue accusations about someone you can be held accountable for your actions. The government is not stopping you from speaking, which would infringe your free speech rights. if you do it anonymously then it is not ureasonable for someone to want to pierce the veil of anonymity.

Let me introduce you to Dale Akiki. Patently false accusations, including that he had sacrificed a giraffe in a church classroom during Sunday services, landed him in an extended court trial. He was eventually exonerated, but for a long stretch of the 1990s, everyone in San Diego knew he was a satanic pedophile.

For example, an ad to show that I am not a witch. Everyone will believe that.

I have faith in people's intelligence.

You're joking. Have you taken a look at people lately?

I would imagine that the number of 11 year olds who review past Illinois Supreme Court decisions in their spare time is vanishingly, vanishingly small.