Regular readers of this blog will recall that we’ve posted a few articles documenting the harmful effects of online hate speech, so if the following story sounds familiar, it should.

CNN is reporting that anonymous, online gossip is taking an enormous toll on our nation’s young people. “Jane,” a college freshman in New York, who asked that her real identity be withheld, has suffered psychologically, emotionally and even physically after her name was linked to salacious rumors on a college gossip site. Anonymous commenters have called the 18 year old student racist, ugly and “overrated.” Jane claims the rumors are untrue, but like other internet nastiness, the meaner the language, the more page views their posts generate and the more damage they cause to an individual’s reputation.

Just how damaging is this digital hate? Jane says that after reading the slander, “she felt like she had been kicked in the stomach.”

[Jane] called her parents in the middle of the night crying. She has lost weight, has trouble sleeping, and has become suspicious of those around her. She told me that it has ruined her freshman year — and will likely taint her entire college experience.

So what, if any, recourse does Jane have? She can hire a reputation management firm to help her craft a more becoming online image, or she can litigate, an option that is too time consuming and expensive for most students.

The CNN piece concludes by documenting the outdated case law that surrounds anonymous online hate. It notes, correctly, that the First Amendment protects free and even unpopular speech and that anonymous speech is also protected. Current case law does not allow for defamatory information to be spread freely, online or in the real world.

To successfully sue the posters, Jane would have to show that they made false and defamatory statements about her (racist and slutty would qualify, I think) published them to a third party (I read them) and that her reputation was damaged (check).

In fact, most jurisdictions also recognize “per se” defamation, where the allegations are presumed to cause damage to the plaintiff, such as attacks on a person’s professional character or standing.

What do you think? Is this harmless online gossip or actionable defamation?

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