[marko]

In a legal landmark case here in the UK, a 45 year old woman has won the right to force Facebook to hand over the personal details of at least 4 people who taunted and bullied her and accused her of being a paedophile and a drug dealer!.

A High Court in the UK heard how the woman was subject to "vicious and depraved" anonymous comments on Facebook after she defended an axed X-Factor contestant.  Not only that, but fake Facebook accounts were set up in the woman's name to apparently lure young girls into posting indecent images.

We've spoken about freedom of speech before and the ability to remain anonymous on the likes of Facebook and Youtube, where most have no recourse to the often abusive and grossly offensive behaviour of others, but this issue has severely affected this poor woman and she felt strongly enough to take the matter to court, and thankfully, the courts have upheld her case and are now demanding Facebook release IP address details and any other personally identifiable information to hunt down those responsible for the tyrant of abuse and distress this lady has suffered.

As it stands at the moment, she has no official recourse, even though a criminal act has been committed which falls under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997, Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 - however, because of the nature of the attack online, these laws are somewhat irrelevant and outdated so the police are almost at a loss on how to become involved in the case so a private prosecution has to be made.

Question is - has this been a step too far by those responsible for this bullying or do we still allow anonymity on the net and tell those on the receiving end to close their respective accounts and move on?.

[marko]

Well, just to be the first to respond to the poll, I've voted for "Yes, no questions about it, and long overdue".

Now I know it's possible that we could potentially fall into the trap of "what happens when they get the wrong person", but let's face it - we're hardly likely to go to the trouble of forcing a website to hand over personal details about someone, take them to court, prove they are guilty of posting vile or abusive comments and then get it wrong when we post their details for all to see, or read about them in the papers when they are prosecuted for their crimes.

This is exactly why we need some form of control over the internet, particularly when dealing with the big players like FB and YT because at the moment it's almost a free for all, with all types of gross and highly offensive comments being posted all over the place.  I'm all for free speech, but not at the expense of someone else's feelings or purposely to take innocent people down in the name of free speech.   There are ways of disagreeing with others, but not in an offensive way - it's called debate, but sometimes people are not out for debate, they're out to hurt, to shock and to demoralise anyone who crosses their path and it's these types of people who need to be made accountable for their actions - them and the websites who allow them to spout their hatred and gratuitous remarks!.

[FutureShock]

I agree with you marko.

I will say that if the net industry could just get past the point where they can guarantee innocent users of the internet that hackers won't be able to set them up for behaving indecently, they could get down to business with the countries over content issues.  To do this, the internet industry must pull together and set up the organizations that will guarantee things run smoothly.  This is why I am so insistent on the internet community pulling itself together.  Yes mostly for good service, but also as marko points out for rights protections on the internet.  Pulling it all together won't be nearly as challenging as meeting the requirements of nations with regards to content, but I don't think either will be all that difficult.

Internet industy...you must get busy about this!

[Claw]

Oh brother, YES,,YES,,YES,,YES !!! I vote yes, just in case anyone didn't understand that. Catch them, prosecute them, lock them up.
OR,,,,lock them up in a room with me and my friends for 1 hour, then they can come in and soak-up what's left of them with a sponge.

[jayesstee]

Claw, on 11 June 2012 - 08:24 PM, said:

Oh brother, YES,,YES,,YES,,YES !!! I vote yes, just in case anyone didn't understand that. Catch them, prosecute them, lock them up.
OR,,,,lock them up in a room with me and my friends for 1 hour, then they can come in and soak-up what's left of them with a sponge.

And then wipe the hard drives/memories of their PCs, iP.. gadgets, Android devices.  Not just them but also any other device they have access to!

[jayesstee]

How come there are four guys making comments and only three votes?

[FutureShock]

Thought I had voted already jayesstee.  Thanks for picking up on that!  

[Claw]

Yeah , trust me jayesstee, anything on getting even, revenge or just due reward, I'm definitely voting yes.   I personally feel that anyone, or site that does that or allows that to happen to someone, should be held responsible and the offender should be drawn and quartered. Or locked in the room with me, they would be shocked at my arsenal, but all I would need is my fist.

[rpsgc]

So basically you're all opening the door to the prosecution of people for trivial stuff.



"oh no, you called me stupid on the internet, I'm gonna sue you!"

[AlphaCentauri]

It should be possible, but not be "no questions asked." We had "no questions asked" here in the US with The Patriot Act. The government could seize your data and the holder of the data -- even your doctor -- wasn't even allowed to notify you so you could file a challenge in court.  There needs to be due process. But in a case such as you describe, a judge should issue a subpoena to release the information, FB should notify the accused to give her a chance to defend herself in case she is wrongly accused, and if she doesn't successfully challenge it, the information should be released to the aggrieved party.