I read this article on Techdirt.com about this law suit against an anonymous commenter in Philadelphia. This anonymous commenter, apparently made a comment about John J. Dougherty, who is the head of a powerful electrical company in Philly. The commenter was being sued for defamation because he referred to Dougherty by his famous name Johnny doc, and called him a pedophile. The lawsuit demanded that the website which the comment was found- Philly.com, give up the name of the anonymous commenter. The website had the information but refused to provide it. Instead, the website contacted the commenter informing him/her of the lawsuit and promptly deleted any traces of the commenters account on it’s website.
What I found interesting about this article is, although the website was not being sued by third party actions, it still took the task of deleting any traces of the user. But the plaintiff was still able to search up the username before any traces of it was removed from the site. The username was searched on the web and had multiple hits on different sites, in which they eventually found the biographical information of the commenter. The users name “fbpdplt” stood for “Fire Boat Philadelphia Pilot. The user was registered on Sailnet.com, where it revealed that the user was a past fireboat pilot.
This brings me to how there is no such thing as anonymous. If a person really wanted to find the identity behind an anonymous user he/ she could. It can be done by tracing IP addresses or as simple as on the web. This goes to show that what you put on the web will stay on the web, even if you delete it. There is no such thing as “delete” on the web.
My question is, do you think that people realize that there is no such thing as anonymous? Is there such a thing as anonymity on the web? If so, does it imply that there are no consequences for the actions done on the web through this because he/she believes that he/she is being protected by this anonymity?
That is definitely a very interesting article. In my opinion, people behind a computer screen lose a sense of their humanity. People tend to believe they are behind a veil of anonymity. They are able to say things that they would never say in real life. In most cases of internet defamation nothing can be done. However, like your example, large companies or organizations with enough money can definitely make people pay for what they say online.