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Comment by maeon3 | Hacker News Reader

I do not agree with the statements of the troll but will defend his right to say it. The internet is making the world like a small town. Piss on people on the internet will be like pissing on people in line at Walmart. You can, but people are going to hate you, and you will never be forgiven by anyone for anything bad you do unless you hire a professional to erase your histories.

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This particular guy was located in Wales. Speech is protected under European and UK law, but I'd say that it's not quite the same extent as in the US. For example, there are particular laws against defamation, harassment or racism in speech. One particular law his actions may violate is this:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he: (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_harassment,_alarm_o...

Wrong. I'd defend his right to say it if he weren't anonymous. In the US you do not have a right to anonymous speech. In most countries you don't have this right. You can mostly say whatever you want in public because the people around you will know who you are and can respond.

You do have the right to anonymous speech in the USA as upheld by the Supreme Court in McIntosh vs. Ohio in 1995:

http://www.acluohio.org/about/historicacluohiolitigation.asp...

and again in Watchtower Bible vs. Stratton in 2002

http://epic.org/free_speech/watchtower.html

Wrong again. First case she didn't have to put her full address on, but everyone knew who she was because she was actually walking around giving them out and she didn't mislead them.

Second case is about religious freedom and the government not having the right to out members of a religion.

Neither of the cases are about a person being totally anonymous, or someone spewing hate speech anonymously, or someone bullying someone anonymously.

But hey, people will spin this into "I now have the right to troll a guy's dead grandma."

Additionally, these are just court cases. Sure they have a slight force of law if applied narrowly to similar cases. When I say a right I mean in the constitution or an amendment. People say like to say the constitution allows anonymous speech but it doesn't by any stretch.

So, if I were to be exact: I stand corrected, there are two obscure cases that relate to two small situations not related to the internet which allows for a small amount of anonymous speech, which does not give people a total right to be anonymous all the time.

Supreme court and most lower courts have consistently ruled for anonymous speech rights. It's kind of ingrained into the national character with the Federalist Papers and all that.

AFAIK, there's never been a supreme court ruling against anonymous speech rights. There have been lower court rulings against them, usually in cases that look like stalking.

By default, all speech is presumed to be permitted under U.S. law. The First Amendment, and related court cases, concern the power of the government to limit speech--not the right of free speech itself. So, to make the case that anonymous speech is not a right in the U.S., you would need to show a case where the Supreme Court specifically ruled that the government may limit anonymous speech. I'm not aware of any such case.

> People say like to say the constitution allows anonymous speech but it doesn't by any stretch

Source?

You're proposing what sounds like a pretty novel interpretation of the first amendment. Do you have any evidence that it's widely accepted, or that it's correct?

Except you can't piss on people in public?

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