Model Blogger

Hooray! Finally there is someone who has the money and gumption to fight on-line meanies! According to CNN (8/25/09), Rosemary Port wrote nasty comments about model, Liskula Cohen, in her blog entitled, "Skanks in NY". Yuck. A court ruled that Liskula had the right to find the name of her attacker because the comments were libelous. Google was served an order to identify Rosemary.

Now, Rosemary is suing Google for releasing her name on the grounds that on-line blogging is a private forum and not meant for public viewing. Get real girlie, the Internet is nothing but public. It is designed to meet the informational needs of people across the globe.

IN MY OPINION, anyone who purposely slams another on-line, or posts a potentially damaging visual image is guilty of libel. Just because you "invite" friends to view a blog does not mean one can truly expect privacy. Furthermore, I was wondering what Rosemary's intentions were for this negatively named blog? For some reason I don't think it was meant to be complimentary.

We Americans have been trying to qualify this issue since we made freedom of speech an American right. Various court cases have deemed that a person cannot purposely publicize false and defamatory comments, cannot report tidbits not backed up by evidence or yell "fire" in a crowded theater. I believe posting "skank" in a blog is comparable to screaming fire in a crowded theater. Furthermore, One can expect privacy on-line if they are composing an e-mail that is addressed to only one or two people. However, one can never expect blogs, websites, face book, twitter and other web 2.0 tools to be fully private.

The cyber bullying has to stop! It is damaging to reputations and emotional states and is counterproductive. There is no practical reason for it, so why do it?