Anonymous blogger better think twice before posting nasties online…
Former model Liskula Cohen has sued Google forcing them to reveal the identity of an unsavoury anonymous blogger who runs and controls a blog hosted on blogger.com called Skanks of New York. It is claimed that the blog website features several libellous and defamatory comments about the former model, and as a result Cohen took legal action forcing Google to reveal the identity of the anonymous blogger. Cohen is now entitled to file a defamation lawsuit against the writer behind the now-defunct blog.
It is the same situation here in the UK, in a case earlier this year, Author of a Blog v. Times Newspapers Ltd. [2009] EWHC 1358 (QB), the Times newspaper was given the right to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger. The anonymous blogger unsuccessfully tried to move the court for a preliminary injunction to restrain Times from revealing his identity on the basis that his anonymity is protected under the right to privacy enforced by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Justice Eady declined the injunction primarily on the grounds that blogging was essentially a public and not a private activity and that it was in public interest to inform the citizens of the background of the blogger providing such views.
These two cases show that bloggers can no longer make throw away insults and claims behind the comfort of anonymity. Anonymity has always been a default option when blogging online, but these cases raise several important questions over whether we really have a right to anonymity and do bloggers have rights when it comes to voicing an opinion?
