BLOGGING, "FREE SPEECH" & THE CYBERBULLY

We have posted an article regarding a special sort of cyberpath: THE CYBERBULLY before. And new ones have come to our attention. People such as bloggers like this - use their forums to spread misinformation or information only THEY deem appropriate and palatable (usually by deleting comments to their posts they don't like or disagree with). That's fine - the internet is an uninhibited realm and for the control freaks and internet tyrants, this works well.

However, there are those, who when they don't like your ideas - decide to deride those who are behind the ideas personally. Sometimes these remarks are just plain mean spirited, but some? Are sexually provocative, vindictive and yes - defamatory. Full of hate and misogyny or misandry these KEYBOARD BULLIES find it very easy to try to ride someone into the ground from the protection of a nickname or a blog. Just as romance and financial cyberpaths embark on a smear campaign when found out, this bunch engages in smear campaigning, victim blaming, blame shifting and projection .


Writing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth can keep you out of trouble--both in your personal and public life--only to a point. While truth is the defense for libel and slander, it is NOT a defense for invasion of privacy and the Internet is the new frontier where not everything is clearly defined.

And even if you consider your blog a diary, that doesn't keep you safe from character defamation charges--and the cost could be as much as 23 years of your life. LINK

But are they really free to do this? Nope. They may continue to remind you how hard it is to legislate HATE SPEECH as opposed to FREE SPEECH. These are special kinds of cyber-narcissists who lead double lives - like this guy - who works an altruistic job during the day - but at night lets his thinly veiled anger, hate & arrogant snobbery run free along with his cyberbuddys in a wild case of mobbing syndrome. Oh, not everyone on this blog or blogs like this are bad. Some are intelligent enough to speak to the issues. However - blog owners like this guy are heading for trouble. And their sycophants .... er, commenters - keep trying to tell those they offend its NOT defamation, slander or libel. Or, like most of the disordered - that their victims 'simply don't know what they are talking about' -- like abusers who tell their victims its not abuse. These people like many cyberpaths - hope to define reality with their very words.


These guys have decided that they don't like the idea of a National Marriage Database, which EOPC supports - and to prove it they will make defamatory statements from their little keyboards about the two strongest proponents of this Database. O.K. In America, much of our government and our laws are based on the products of disagreement. However - comments like:

"I think it's clear that Sandra Phipps is a royal bitch," LINK

"there's Donna Layne Roberts, the authoritarian, educationally-challenged anti-bigamy activist who continues to warn TtP (and our commenters) that offending her and Sandra Phipps is a crime and that we're all going to go jail if we don't stop making jokes about anti-bigamy activists getting fucked by horses." LINK
(note - writer 'Cicero' attempts here and in other posts to characterize Ms. Roberts standing up him as a 'threat' and the database as a 'threat.' Typical abuser-playing victim-mentality Nice try Cicero)

"if by flirting you mean jacking off while I think about Sandra Phipps" LINK

"Donna Layne Robert's full threat (and others) are in the comment section of our previous posts. She is clearly a threat to free speech, liberty, moms, and apple pies. I encourage TtP readers to mercilessly mock her, and leave Sandra Phipps alone." LINK

"I'm practically licking whipcream off of Donna Layne Robert's hairy ass..." LINK

...are just plain wrong. That's not commentary. That's abuse.


"More recently, in Durango, as reported by Shane Benjamin, writing for the Durango Herald, a "Fort Lewis College honors graduate was sentenced to a total of 23 years in prison...after being found guilty of 26 felonies, including criminal libel."

One example of how he victimized was creating a Web site in a professor's name identifying her as a sexual deviant and asking anyone reading to come rape her." LINK

FROM THIS SAME ARTICLE:

"On a smaller scale, a Wisconsin Web site, FullofBologna.com, was temporarily shut down by a judge in a case that involved “anonymous messages on a bulletin board on the site. She [Winnebago County Clerk of Courts Diane Fremgen] claims those messages included libelous, sexually explicit comments."

"The lawsuit is against the Dennis Payne who operates the site and "the anonymous participant who went by the pseudonym, Mr. Imperfect." LINK

A bit more on sexually charged comments on blogs:

"Rae Langton agrees and concludes that "women as a group have rights against the consumers of pornography, and thereby have rights that are trumps against the policy of permitting pornography...the permissive policy is in conflict with the principle of equal concern and respect, and that women accordingly have rights against it" (1990, 346). Because she is not basing her argument on the harm principle, she does not have to show that women are harmed by pornography. For the argument to be persuasive, however, one does have to accept that permitting pornography does mean that women are not treated with equal concern and respect.

"we have to decide whether it is better to place a higher value on speech than it is on the value of privacy, security, equality, or the prevention of harm." LINK

Its one thing to go to exposure sites about people you've married or dated, as an article I wrote explains - to expose them. Its another to revictimize people who have already been victimized and them blame them and smear them when these victims try to find a viable solution to prevent anyone else from being victimized!

"For Stanley Fish, the issue is one of finding a balance in which "we must consider in every case what is at stake and what are the risks and gains of alternative courses of action" (1994, 111). Is speech promoting our basic values or undermining them? "If you don't ask this question, or some version of it, but just say that speech is speech and that's it, you are mystifying--presenting as an arbitrary and untheorized fiat-- a policy that will seem whimsical or worse to those whose interests it harms or dismisses" (1994, 123).

"In other words, there have to be reasons behind the argument to allow speech; we cannot simply say that the First Amendment says it is so, therefore it must be so. The task is not to come up with a principle that always favors expression, but rather, to decide what is good speech and what is bad speech. A good policy "will not assume that the only relevant sphere of action is the head and larynx of the individual speaker" (1994, 126). Is it more in keeping with the values of a democratic society, in which every person is deemed equal, to allow or prohibit speech that singles out specific individuals and groups as less than equal? The answer, according to Fish, cannot be settled by simply appealing to a pre-ordained ideal of absolute free speech, because this is a principle that is itself in need of defense. Fish's answer is that, "it depends. I am not saying that First Amendment principles are inherently bad (they are inherently nothing), only that they are not always the appropriate reference point for situations involving the production of speech" (1994, 113). But, all things considered, "I am persuaded that at the present moment, right now, the risk of not attending to hate speech is greater than the risk that by regulating it we will deprive ourselves of valuable voices and insights or slide down the slippery slope towards tyranny. This is a judgement for which I can offer reasons but no guarantees" (1994, 115).

"Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners and, coming thus within the category of offenses against others, may rightly be prohibited. (1978, 97 [author's emphasis] - J.S. Mill" LINK

Maybe this is just their feeble way of driving more traffic to their low-rent blog. They should have checked their egos and engaged what, if any, brains they had before they shot off their mouths via computer. You see, those of us who have been victimized by cyberpaths and bullies? We aren't afraid of very much - in fact, by the time you read this - all their information will already be in the appropriate hands. Free Speech is a wonderful thing - until you abuse it and others in the process. We psychopath and malignant narcissist victims know this only too well.

Freedom of speech, the public diary-style of some blogs and the publication of truth isn’t enough to protect bloggers from lawsuits of libel and invasion of privacy and those charges could come from readers in nations that are governed by different laws.

So writer beware. You don't know who or where your readers are LINK

At least one of this mob has apologized:

Fighter, I'd like to personally apologize for the offensive comments that I made under the name 'Cerafyn' about your affiliate of Fight Bigamy, namely the comments directed at Sandra Phipps. I can't apologize enough to her, but I'd like to express regret for having offended you, as well. Please know that I acknowledge their immature and hateful voice, along with unforgiveable words for which I know am wholly accountable. They were, assuredly, a confusing and unjustified outburst at an undeserving group of people.



Thanks Cerafyn. You are right - unjustified, hateful and immature comments to an very undeserving group of victims. But the rest have dug in their heels with more garbage than ever spewing from these supposedly 'learned minds' who need to throw their credentials around along with their lack of common decency. So allow EOPC to inform the rest of you:

Libel and slander are legal claims for false statements of fact about a person that are printed, broadcast, spoken or otherwise communicated to others. Libel generally refers to statements or visual depictions in written or other permanent form, while slander refers to verbal statements and gestures. The term defamation is often used to encompass both libel and slander.

Examples of some of the common types of defamatory statements are the following: (1) statements which make a claim about whether a person has committed a crime; (2) statements which impute the presence of an infectious or loathsome disease; (3) statements which injure a person with respect to his office, trade or business; and (4) statements which impute some lack of moral dignity. Even if the statements fit into one of these categories, which are not all inclusive, it is not defamatory if it is true.

Regarding defamation on a blog, if you are hosting a blog, and providing interactive services such forums or comment section, or even participating in these forums, you could find yourself facing a claim for defamation if you are involved in the publication of false harmful statement - even if you are not the author of the statement, and have no editorial control.

Additionally, even if you are not the original author, and have no editorial control, you could be liable if someone publishes a defamatory statement on your site or service. LINK

Never ever take this sort of thing lying down. There's only one way to beat a bully - stand up to them. Look out cyberbullies - rev up the cyber-shredders too. The accountability train just pulled in.

UPDATE: The posters over at the site in question in the above post think they are having a field day at EOPC's expense.

In brief.... we are 'crazy' and wear a 'tin foil' hat; this site has too many font colors; we are skating on thin legal ice (projection at its finest here, folks), we are guilty for reprinting the offending comments (LOL - guess they don't read us much huh?) and we are goat ****ers. Can't thank them enough for bringing traffic here, alerting people to the cyberbulling aspect of blogs and the brief moments of laughter. Carry on! - Fighter