Surviving the Age of Humiliation | Hacker News Reader

Surviving the Age of Humiliation

online.wsj.com

18 pointsgrellas10 comments

> "But one of these days, someone will launch a comprehensive lawsuit, and a jury will say that an Internet provider like Google is liable," he predicts. "Sooner or later, an Internet provider will pay a massive price" for spreading malicious gossip.

How is that possible? Can juries override safe harbour provisions?

Google has already been sued (in Italy) over something like this, and the outrage about that conviction was fairly universal iirc.

It's probably possible somewhere in the world. If something is published, it's published most everywhere (which has led to some defamation cases being heard in some rather odd places IIRC).

So I agree it'll probably happen sooner or later.

Bad litigation trips through courts all the time, it's not a deal breaker on justice, it's par for the course.

an Internet provider like Google

Seriously now, this guy is pretty confused. Just as many litigants, juries and judges must also be when bruised egos and high technology collide in a courtroom.

I think he meant to say 'internet service provider', and even if I associate that with companies providing access technically speaking Google is an ISP and things like youtube are 'internet services'.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/your-new-isp...

Here's another case:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/story-e6frf7lf-1225858177940

which has inspired others to go after them:

http://www.thelocal.se/26362/20100429/

But I thought we weren't embarrassed anymore? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1322721

An interesting thing the article doesn't mention is the effect of anonymity on malicious gossip. The ability to publish widely and anonymously with such ease is unprecedented. Is it not that society's getting nastier, but that it's so much easier to be nasty and get away with it?

Surely the ability to be nasty and get away with it encourages nastiness by removing the negative reinforcement towards being "nice", thus making society nastier?

I hadn't thought of it that way. I had thought of it as additional opportunity for the same amount of nastiness to manifest itself.

Reminds me of a line from King of the Hill, when Minh Souphanousinphone is a bit too blunt with Peggy Hill, Minh apologizes by saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, I said something out loud that I should have only thought."

There's a lot more "out loud" when the cost is so low. I half hope it leads to people becoming more critical about who they let get under their skin, and more critical in what they believe from random sources, but I'm not optimistic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com