After posting yesterday about anonymous posters claiming to have been defamed on message boards, last night I read a startling post on Trade Me. An anonymous poster, drunk though he might have been, gave notice that he/she was going to sue TM and four other posters. linz4me claimed to have taken legal advice, later he/she said that he would prepare the brief and send it onto a barrister. Now I don't know who gave linz4me legal advice, or if linz was truthful with the initial lawyer, but I'm very confident that even an inexperienced first year law student would have asked the question, 'how can you claim loss or offence as an anonymous person who nobody knows apart from a cyber name?' Effectively, that would be the end of the matter.
linz4me is an interesting cyber identity who blogs on the issue of law for the hate-sites Counterspin and Justice For Robin Bain. No wonder they're getting sued - this guy, guyette doesn't know who he/she is. Very interesting.
Slightly off topic but regarding the same issue, I've invited a fellow by the name of Goodnewsguy to make a guest blog on here at some point about what ever he feels like writing about.
You need to be fair to Linz4me.
ReplyDeleteHe or she did not state which country they were in.
There may be a law somewhere in outer Mongolia, or other such country, which allows him to sue for defamation. Especially in situations where there hasn't been a clear defamatory statement made.
Perhaps a statement, which when turned upside down, every third and fourth character reversed, and rearranged according to the linear pattern of the glaxey, can be seen (whilst wearing 3D glasses) to state something nasty, that we can't see. For their legal system, this maybe enough to take his threatened legal action.
I think the legal advice he offers, demonstrates this particular sequence in his interpretation of the law.