Those are some pretty intense personal attacks.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070618-testing-the-limits-of-forum-bashing-two-law-students-sue-over-personal-attacks.html

 

Maybe Doe I is a really terrible interviewer?

Interesting to see how this progresses. At first I was thinking "Oh grow the fuck up little girls." but after reading that personal information and photos were posted by users, I tend to think they may have a legitmate case here.

 

I'd say that this is definitely worth suing over. That level of insult goes waaaay beyond friendly ribbing of any sort and, yeah, if people are googlebombing their names, of course they're going to have trouble getting hired if people are doing background checks on them.

 

The googlebombing is what sold me. That's an active attempt to present information about someone in a distorted fashion, and it'll be particularly interesting to me to see how the courts deal with that.

Posting pictures isn't cool, but if you've put them up on your FaceBook, you shouldn't act suprised if they show up elsewhere. And the insults certainly weren't appropriate. But being insulted is part of life. The only point I'd support legal action over would be the rape threats--you could argue they weren't real since they were on the internet, but I feel like using the shield of anonymity to make threats is exactly what makes it a problem. Even then, I think that should be criminal first, civil second.

 

The rape threats definitly make it a legal matter. The anonymity makes it an even worse threat if you think about it, cause it presents the possibility that some you don't know is watching you and knows everything about you.

And if the message board does have a "no-outing" rule and they can prove that other similar messages directed towards other people have been removed then I'd say the site's liable too.

 

I'd never join a message board for lawyers. That's asking for trouble.

 

QFT - when I saw that, it made me wonder if this was all some kind of stunt to get money out of the school, and they were all in on it just as some kind of "class project".

 

I was surprised to hear that the moderators at AutoAdmit allowed a thread to remain alive that was entitled "Stupid Bitch to Attend Yale Law".

I mean, this is a site about Transformers and if a thread was started called "Stupid Bitch to Attend Botcon" I am certain the mods would close it.

 

Rape threats???

WTF is wrong with people?

 

Innuendos about sexual preference, personal attacks, and incessant teasing of a particular poster on a TF related message board?

WTF is wrong with people?

 

That's different than actually threatening to rape someone, you have to admit that.

 

Absolutely.

And just to clarify, I was only (attempting to) illustrate that pretty serious online bashing occurs all the time.

I was not intentionally picking on anyone.

 

This could get really ugly if we start talking about current events here. Too soon.

 

I agree, but there is a line that shouldn't be crossed, for example, threats of rape and other forms of physical harm.

I mean, if they had simply made fun of these girls and teased them, called them lesbians etc, I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but the moment that line was crossed, it became more than "bashing".

 

I saw the headline and immediately thought the same thing.

It should be interesting to see what ultimately happens. It would have been even more interesting (and probably applicable to more message board situations) w/o the rape threats.

 

Wow, that's just awful how Doe I & II were treated. 

They have every right to sue, and I do hope they win their case.

 

I think this could also be a very interesting case study in how people can jump onto a bandwagon of bashing. The first thread was made by a guy who was a classmate of the first girl at Stanford. It would be interesting to see if this guy was one of the "cool kids" of the site, and others jumped in on attacking the poor girl just to gain favor with the cool kid. I could definately see something like that happening here, except for the rape threats. I think we here are better than that.

 

THAT'S IT! This thread is enough motivation for me to sue Tony Bacala and his "associates!"

 

 

let me know when we can sue someone from the boards. i hope to get rich off you kthxbye