Editorial
Cranberry Stressline
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R-rated link (for language)

A flea and a fly in a flue ¹
 

5/5/02 -- I've been thinking about why people insist on posting anonymously on the Cranberry Stressline Forum. This continues to puzzle me. Is it fear, shyness, ignorance of the unlikelihood of negative consequences, or just plain human nature?

After all, this isn't the kind of message board which is likely to provoke some malicious reader to look your name up and call you in the middle of the night or send you malicious mail. The ominous looking dark sedan parked near your house probably belongs to a family marveling at how pretty your spring bloom is.

And if you don't want to be sued, how hard it is to be critical (and even opinionated) and still avoid writing something that might be construed as libel or defamation?

Of all the messages posted on the Cranberry Stressline Forum, I can think of very few where a poster might be at risk of a company trying to take punitive action against them for libel. 

Some posters who may  have been employees have made complaints, and if they signed their names could have jeopardized their jobs. In those instances of "whistle blowing" I believe it is preferable to come forward anonymously with one's opinion or complaint rather than maintain silence.

All this being said, I've given up on any expectation that more than a few brave souls will post with their real names. I'm wavering on the notion that requiring a password to post is a good idea, even though many (if not most) message boards on commercial websites require them.

I want the Stressline Forum to be informative and illuminating, but also on occasion entertaining. I don't want it to be boring and I'm willing to monitor it for personal attacks and offensive posts. If some consider the Forum to be a venue for tasteless, off-the-wall, irrelevant banter between a bunch of malcontents with nothing better to do, they should consider this notorious website ², whose R-rated name and messages I can't even print on Stressline.

Among cranberry companies on that website, only a search of their archives for "Northland"  comes up with any messages (17), but it would cost me a $25 search fee to find out whether these are about Northland Cranberries or another company named "Northland.^{" 3} That website is reviewed and monitored by many business reporters, so a thread of accurate negative postings there about a company can be very detrimental to its reputation.

I strongly believe you have the right to post anonymously on any web message board and be protected from lawsuits when a company tries to stifle critics by attempting to extract your identity from your service provider. (Read AOL's take on this here, and another interesting article on this subject, from USA Today, "Companies go after anonymous Net critics".)

What can happen when a company tries to sue a message board based web site is well documented on the site that shall not be named. More firms seem to be are taking legal action to identify anonymous posters. However, courts have been ruling the that identities of anonymous posters can't be revealed unless a company can show potential libel or damages. A lawsuit can easily backfire for a company that is too thin-skinned by actually promoting an relatively obscure website, and airing its dirty linen in a more public forum. Even a law school isn't immune from potentially detrimental publicity arising out of suing a website, as this article in the May 6, 2002 New York Times demonstrates.

Rarely do our posters rise (or sink) to the level of scurrilous rhetoric found in some of the controversial message boards, including some on Yahoo's finance boards. Even posters on relative tame message boards, like The Vault and The Motley Fool sometimes transcend the bound of good taste.

Back to the subject of Stressline's anonymous posters. I have lost count of the times John Swendrowski and John Decas asked for their critics, with whom they took the time to debate on the Forum, to identify themselves or at least explain why the chose to remain anonymous. None to date have done so. I doubt any will. I hope the two Johns don't feel like the fly and the flea in the flue.

Hope may spring eternal (line 95), but I realize we'll have a hard frost in August before more than a few people will actually sign their names.

¹ From an anonymous limerick:

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly: `Let us flee'
Said the flea: `Let us fly!'
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

 ² A few of the numerous news items on the web about "unnamed website," whose proprietor, according to an article in the New York Post, makes more than $60,000 a month on subscription fees and merchandise, with almost no overhead (he has free hosting and a single assistant): Papmag.net; metroactive.com; Newsreview.com; flakmag.com; San Francisco Journal; AlterNet.org; ursis.com; imind.com; Baltimore City Paper; buzz.weblogs.com

³ There are many companies named Northland, in, for example: fishing and tackle, insurance, publishing, marine transportation, electric motors, and sportswear.

Links

NEW article: Free Speech Online and Offline By Ross Anderson

Libel & Defamation in the Information Age

My Web Libel Adventure By Jonathan Wallace

Discovering the identity of anonymous posters in the New York Law Journal

AOL sides with anonymous posters The Wall Street Journal Online

Online message boards bedevil companies, Gannett News Service

'Cyberventing' sites attack firms online Gannet News Service

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