what's in a name?

To name or not to name, once again. Rather than going over old ground, go here from some previously charted territory on anonymity on the web, specifically as regards the odious juicy campus.

On a more releant note, the New York Times reports that several serious news sites are rethinking previous policies that let readers comment under the complete cloak of anonymity. Originally, reporter Richard Perez-Pena writes, opening up the web to any and all who wanted to join the conversation was looked upon, at least by some, as admirable:

From the start, Internet users have taken for granted that the territory was both a free-for-all and a digital disguise, allowing them to revel in their power to address the world while keeping their identities concealed.

A New Yorker cartoon from 1993, during the Web’s infancy, with one mutt saying to another, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” became an emblem of that freedom. For years, it was the magazine’s most reproduced cartoon.

When news sites, after years of hanging back, embraced the idea of allowing readers to post comments, the near-universal assumption was that anyone could weigh in and remain anonymous. But now, that idea is under attack from several directions, and journalists, more than ever, are questioning whether anonymity should be a given on news sites.

It's a good question, one that many big thinkers are rethinking. Back to Perez-Pena:

Some prominent journalists weighed in on the episode, calling it evidence that news sites should do away with anonymous comments. Leonard Pitts Jr., a Miami Herald columnist, wrote recently that anonymity has made comment streams “havens for a level of crudity, bigotry, meanness and plain nastiness that shocks the tattered remnants of our propriety.”

No one doubts that there is a legitimate value in letting people express opinions that may get them in trouble at work, or may even offend their neighbors, without having to give their names, said William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s journalism school.

“But a lot of comment boards turn into the equivalent of a barroom brawl, with most of the participants having blood-alcohol levels of 0.10 or higher,” he said. “People who might have something useful to say are less willing to participate in boards where the tomatoes are being thrown.”

All of which is another reminder that one of the issues in all things digital is the fact that the technology often outpaces our ability to think about it. bk

Juicy loses its ju-ju

The SF Chronicle (and others) reports that as of last Thursday, Juicy Campus has gone dark. Hooray for that. I guess....

The college gossip site allowed anonymous posts on, among other things, who did what with whom and lists of "the biggest sluts on campus". While the posters were anonymous, the posts themselves named names.

Acccording to founder Matt Ivester, the blog was losing ads because of the economy, but possibly the real reason, according to another piece in the Chron, was that the site -- the cyber equivalent of a bathroom wall at a dive bar -- was the subject of a growing number of investigations and defamation lawsuits.

As I posted here back in October, the site was protected by the Communications Decency Act, which shields "Web publishers from liability for libelous comments posted by third parties." But as the Chron piece notes, legalistas are starting to ask whether the law needs rethinking on the grounds that it allowed far too much "irresponsible speech."

And yet. I find every possible thing about Juicy Campus to have been reprehensible in every possible way. Still, its demise brings us some interesting questions about both the web and First Amendment protections. What constitutes protected speech on the web? Does restricting the free speech protections of such sites as Juicy Campus (or Yelp!, which is facing its share of legal problems as well, as the Chron reports) hurt us all in the long run?

And, as the Chron's piece questions: is the so-called "wisdom of the crowds", which is the backbone of Web 2.0, wise enough to be truly a corrective to either erroneous, irresponsible or defamatory speech? Stay tuned. bk

trash posting

Now back to uncharted territory.

Today in class Keegan brought up a microdiscussion about Juicy Campus*, a website that allows anonymous posters to talk trash about their friends, their classmates, their teachers online. One aspect of the discussion involved whether or not the posts on this gossip site constitute speech protected by the first amendment.

But even if the posts weren't protected, who could you sue? Further: Who can be called to task when an anonymous source libels someone online? And for that reason, what constitutes libel online? Does the First Amendments offer blogs the same protection as, say, The New York Times? Should it?

We've addressed these issues previously, here and here, among other places. But more to the case at hand, the following article from CNN might provide if not an answer, at least food for thought. Among other things, the piece reports:

"Juicy Campus and similar Web sites are protected under Communications Decency Act of 1996. The Act aims to shield Web publishers from liability for libelous comments posted by third parties. The section states "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

* the lack of a link to juicy campus is wholly intentional on my part.