Vogue model wins right to unmask offensive blogger Follow

Obviously it does because yelling "fire" in a theater isn't slander in any imaginable way. It's a restriction of free speech based purely on the harm that the speech causes and is an example that in no way supports your point, other than to link harmful speech to restricted speech. One lady possibly losing her job, if we are judging by this criterion, should not be restricted at all.

You should pick examples that actually support your points.

First of all, if I said to an entire bar that the lady is a 40-something *****, yes, she could sue me for slander. I would be telling people something that is not true, and that could potentially hurt her job options. She probably wouldn't win, but she could sue me.

Second of all, revealing who said something in no way infringes on his free speech. The actual revelation of who said it is not harming him at all. It might make him think twice before voicing something because people will know who he is, but there is no law telling him that he must not type his opinions on his blog.

Why shouldn't one lady losing her job through libel or slander, which is illegal, be restricted? For someone who thinks it's wrong to kill a cow and eat it, you sound callous to say that it should be perfectly legal for one person to ruin another persons career in the name of "free speech."

Why shouldn't one lady losing her job through libel or slander, which is illegal, be restricted? For someone who thinks it's wrong to kill a cow and eat it, you sound callous to say that it should be perfectly legal for one person to ruin another persons career in the name of "free speech."

AS soon as anyone who has a blog is afforded the same protections as a writer for the New York Times, you'll have a point.

Let me know when that occurs.

I see what you're saying, but there has been no judgement made against him yet. This lady has a right to sue and prove whether or not she has been harmed. If she can't prove it, he's fine. If she can, then he will have to "own his words," to use Ambrya's phrase.

The only thing that has been done so far is the lady has been given the name of the person who made the comments so she can sue him and they can work out whether or not his words did harm her.

Right...? Or am I wrong. Is there a judgement and I missed that so far?

Because expressing an opinion that a lady looks like a 40 year old, and actually going out of your way to convince people that she is, as a matter of fact, 40 years old, are different things. You aren't required to preface every one of your opinions with "I think."

Besides, this isn't the issue to be concerned about. Why in hell would you blame this guy for ruining someone's career for guessing at something as innocuous as age.

It should be perfectly legal for a free business or modeling agency to drop a lady from their roster for any reason whatsoever, given that we want businesses to have free control over their employees. I don't really want that, but that isn't going to make me blame the blogger. If anyone is to blame for that sh*t it's the company that would drop her in the first place for not following up on a rumour, or even dropping her if the rumour turned out to be true. Blame the company, not some poor ******* who decided to omit the "well look guys, I'm not saying that this is totally true, but it's just my opinion, and you should treat it as such" from his writing. Blaming the blogger seems like an extremely good way to deflect attention from unsavoury business practices onto a private citizen.

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Also, I don't think it's okay to yell in a theater, nor slander people. The reason that justifies the first prohibition though is not the same reason that justifies the second, which was what I was trying to get at. Obviously the degree of harm does matter. There isn't that much harm going on in this case, but there could certainly be some other reason for prohibiting the speech; the reason would be that it's a malicious lie, not that it ends in harmful consequences. If she wins, it should be because the statement was a malicious lie, not because of some accidental harm that might be created later.

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 6:28pm by Pensive

Because ageism in the modeling world is a different thread? I hardly think you'll find many people who think it's ok, but that's not really what the thread itself was about.

Well, okay, sure, but the choices of defending some sensitive lady suing over hypothetical slander, and refusing to accept that speech must occasionally be limited are both terrible. I'll just have to ask you to forgive me for not wanting this to be a problem in the first place, as a contest between two individuals, both of whom have really done nothing wrong, when there is a much larger fish waiting to be barbecued, even if it's just here.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. That's why she deserves her day in court to establish whether she has or hasn't been harmed. It's entirely possible that her defamation of character suit will fail, but she still deserves the chance to be able to bring it if she feels she's been harmed.

Problem is, she couldn't HAVE her day in court unless she had the identity of the person who allegedly harmed her. He was using "anonymous free speech" as a shield against accepting accountability for his words, and that offends me. If you're going to put it out there, own it.



"Foreseeable consequence" is not a newfangled legal concept.



I don't want to stop harmful speech. I just want those who perpetuate it to have the balls to own their words and take accountability when harm or foreseeable harm arises from them, instead of hiding behind the skirts of Momma Anonymity saying "neeneer neeneer neeneer!!!"

Edit: at the risk of going off on something of a tangent, I'm going to share a little story about why accountability in speech is an issue with me.

Back in high school in AP Western Civ, our teacher told us a story. About ten years previously, when our school was just beginning to implement a sex ed program (in a very VERY religious conservative area; the only way to get the program accepted was to have clergy and parents given approval over the curriculum) plans were made for a speaker to come one evening and give a lecture to the students, whose attendance was completely voluntary. They signed up in droves for the lecture, then the parents caught word that one of the subjects the speaker was going to address was ************* People went through the roof and the next thing you know, the lecture was canceled.

In protest, the students staged a walkout. One afternoon in the middle of fifth period, nearly the entire student body of the school got up en masse, walked outside, and sat on the lawn for fifteen minutes, then went back to class. The principal, at the behest of the superintendent, instructed the teachers to take attendance and give detentions to any student who walked out. In support of the students, however, many teachers--including my Western Civ teacher--marked all students as being present on the attendance form.

When the students came back to class, my teacher told them what he had done, that he would not be giving any of them detentions for participating in the protest. However, he told them that if they TRULY BELIEVED in the rightness of what they had just done, they would, themselves, march down to the principals office and DEMAND that they be given their detentions. Becaause, he said, unless you are willing to accept the consequences of your civil disobedience, then your protest means absolutely nothing. It was the proudest day of his life, he said, when his entire class went to the principal and demanded their detentions.

Now, yes, the example in question really deals more with civil disobedience than speech, but the lesson, which is so clear and powerful to me even 20 years later, remains the same. Free speech without responsibility is worthless. Anyone who uses anonymity as a shield against accepting responsibility for their speech cheapens and perverts the concept of free speech.


Edited, Aug 19th 2009 4:53pm by Ambrya

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. That's why she deserves her day in court to establish whether she has or hasn't been harmed. It's entirely possible that her defamation of character suit will fail, but she still deserves the chance to be able to bring it if she feels she's been harmed.


No. The source of the text is completely irrelevant to if harm was done, and the legal standard (usually) reflects this. If you can't show damages, you don't have a case towards liability.

This is why you can't slander a dead person. No one to damage, no standing.

This may have been established, here, I know literally nothing about this case beyond the headline.

And is therefore a complete non-sequiter?



Free speech that is punished is not free. The reason that I suspect your civ teacher told them to demand detentions was in some nod to the simultaneous realization of fighting injustice in the law while obeying it later, much like a certain dude from Birmingham Jail, but that fight in no way excuses the restriction of speech in the first place. It's admirable and fantastic when people are willing to own their disobedience even if it's the right thing to do

This, ain't that. There is no injustice to fight in upholding free speech. The punishment of detention for your class is an unjust one that shouldn't have happened, and the reason that the disobedient people demand it is for some parts equality, some parts justice, and some parts martyrdom. It was wrong for the principal to give them out, and this case should not be decided as slander, but I guess if the court does decide to rule in favor of the lady, then the guy speaking his mind should take every opportunity to publicize the injustice and become a martyr.

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I thought of how I could make this more clear.

Civil disobedience necessarily breaks the law, because in order to disobey, the law has told you to obey, and now you are not. It's not possible to be disobedient without, somehow, going outside the law, or at least equivalent norms like the law, to accomplish your aims. It might be very peaceful, but it's still unlawful. Turning yourself in for civil disobedience lets you both fight on the side of justice as well as respect the law, because the two don't always mesh.

Free speech necessarily can not break the law, because in order to be free, the law has told you that it's okay to say it. You can't really restrict free speech; you can just restrict what counts as free. There's no imperative to turn yourself in for doing exactly what the law wants you to do; in this case, speak freely. Turning yourself in for free speech makes you both respect the law as well as fail to respect the law, which is obviously impossible. Justice hasn't really entered the picture yet.

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 8:47pm by Pensive

Another mark of being a @#%^ing adult is recognizing that other people will not always like you, and that they are entitled to call you nasty things that may hurt your feelings. Furthermore, you are entitled to ignore their opinion and not have it forced on you.



I'd, like always, think that the schools were being complete collectives of morons by firing someone from unsubstantiated rumors. There's no reason to attack the blogger. Rather, we should be attempting to stop dehumanizing paedophilles to the point where even the threat of one makes everyone put chastity belts on their children.

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 8:56pm by Pensive

If that happened, the teacher would have a great lawsuit against the school for wrongful termination.

No, they wouldn't. Fortunately teachers have strong unions, so they'd have actual recourse. A lawsuit though, not so much.