In the last two years and four months the site has enjoyed just over 11,000 visitors who have viewed some 20,000 pages.  I have several regular readers who visit the site daily.  If we say there are 5 regular visitors, who each visit the main page of the site 5 days a week, then in the last two years these regular visitors account for approximately 1300 of the visit and page view counts.  The remaining 9700 visits are random visitors, usually from a search for “shotski’s ring” or any alphabetical construct involving the letter “z.”  I believe that the number of visitors is slowly increasing, but even assuming 5,000 or so per year, I’ve had no more than 50,000 unique site visits; a statistical insignificance compared to the total number of site visit the Internet must get.

The nearly 1500 entries I’ve posted here have attracted a grand total of 86 comments.  Since converting the site’s backend to WordPress at the beginning of the year, the number of comments have doubled.  Most of those were a result of the generosity of another site providing a link to my humble little Internet backwater. So the idea that a comment would suddenly become the nexus of a controversy is astonishing to me.

The Comment That Roared

Last month, I wrote about a topic that was interesting to me.  I referenced a couple of articles I had seen online and expressed my opinion about the topic.  The posting must have resonated with more than one person as it almost immediately received a couple of comments.  The first linked to yet another posting that was relevant to my central theme.

The second comment has become the center of a tempest in a teapot.  The comment author linked to a story with a real world example of the central topic of my posting.  About 9 days later a third comment was added to the posting, refuting the claims made in the second comment.  Yesterday a fourth comment was added, refuting an obscure portion of the second comment.

Yesterday afternoon I received an email with the subject line “defamatory web comment.”  The mail appears to be from the subject of the second comment, and author of the third comment.  The email objects to the comment, calling it a “knowing or reckless falsity” and ask “whom my lawyer or I can contact about asking that this false and defamatory post [sic] removed as soon as possible.”

NB: The posting I made on my site has nothing to do with the subject of the comments.  I believe the author of the letter is actually referring to a comment attached to the posting.

Maybe my little site has been promoted from lint under the finger nail of the long arm of the Internet to a hair follicle on its little finger.

The Sky is Falling

A number of thoughts run through your mind when you are presented with what appears to be the precursor to a cease and desist letter.  And a number of emotions go along with these thoughts.  The extremes can be summed up as “you’ve got to be kidding me!” and “why didn’t I use a pseudonym when I created this site?”

Some web searching revealed some interesting facts.  The same comment, letter for letter, appears on other personal blogs.  Followed by the same rebuttal.  That the contended comment has a malformed link which doesn’t lead anywhere in all instances I’ve found of it seems to have escaped notice.  I have no way of knowing how prominent the handful of other sites infected with this comment are, but I suspect they are not any closer to the head of the Internet than Zanshin.

Turning to the potential legal aspect of this soap opera I eventually found the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s (EFF) Blogger’s FAQ.  Which has an entire page devoted to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  While many sections of the CDA have been struck down as unconstitutional (partly as a result of the EFF), Section 230 remains as law.  In brief it states: 

Section 230 says that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to limit the reach of Section 230 to “traditional” Internet service providers, instead treating many diverse entities as “interactive computer service providers.”

In other words, as a web publisher, I am not liable for the content of comments posted on my site.  The US 9th Circuit court has upheld this law and, since the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case, this ruling remains as the legal precedent.

A Bully is as a Bully Does

There are two aspects of bullying at the core of this story.  On the digital playground of the Internet there aren’t any monitors, teachers, or responsible adults.  Bullies can, and do, run rampant over other online citizens, often with little or no consequence to themselves.  Much like the American West during the pioneer expansion, individuals often have to find ways to stand up for themselves, without the infrastructure of an established society’s framework of norms to assist them.

The second aspect of bullying here is the tone of the email I received.  ”Whom may my lawyer contact” is a conversational gambit designed to put the recipient on the defensive.  What ever happened to simply asking first, with an explanation, to have the offending comment thread removed?  Trying to dictate the outcome you want, to an unknown party, using the thinly veiled threat of legal action is bullying.  The emotional response I am experiencing is no different than what I would feel were I to be the subject of “defamatory web comments.”

I fear that in her quest to erase all record of what the she feels is “reckless falsity,” the party wanting my web site comment thread altered has reduced herself to the same level as the original author of the alleged falsity.

Pros: No barriers to entry. If someone wants to get involved quickly, they don’t have to create an account. It’s just easier to be anonymous.
Cons: Other users don’t know who just interacted and give that interaction less credit. For example, if anonymous gives me a blog post suggestion via Skribit I might think of it as just another suggestion and I’ll get around to it eventually if it holds merit and if other users like it. Then again, if John Smith, a frequent commenter, gave me the same suggestion I would be more inclined to write that post as I have the sense that Mr. Smith is a dedicated reader and thus I tend to give his suggestion more credit.

However, I think this only scratches the surface of a larger, more insidious, problem with anonymous users online – malicious or slanderous allegations and accusations.

Ars Technica provided coverage of the increased scrutiny and legal attention the college-aimed JuicyCampus website is garnering. In JuicyCampus champions free speech, AGs claim it’s a fraud, Ars Technia reports,

For those who have not yet had the pleasure of coming across JuicyCampus, the site serves as a public forum for college students to anonymously gossip about others. As you might imagine, this has bred an explosion in malicious, accusatory, and otherwise not-nice postings—often naming gossip victims by full name and school. JuicyCampus has simultaneously become popular and the bane of many students’ existence, as they continue to flock to the site to see what new drama is being stirred up.

The legal issue the Attorney General in New Jersey is pursuing isn’t a free speech issue but rather one of

[...] violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud act through unconscionable commercial practices and misrepresentations to users [...].

The problem with JuicyCampus isn’t free speech, it is anonymity giving people carte blanche to say anything about anyone. It’s the classic, “Is it true that you’ve stopped beating your wife?” conundrum made worse by its occurrence in a medium which allows the entire world to voyeuristically participate.

Anonymity breeds an environment which allows people to be bullies with no consequence. School-yard bullies are careful to not terrorize others when the teacher is nearby; anonymity online allows people to say things they wouldn’t repeat in front of authority, or even their peers.

As with any form of bullying, education is perhaps the key to unlocking the problem and eliminating it from our society. Not education in terms of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but education in terms of recognizing other people, their boundaries, emotions, culture, and norms. American society and culture seems to delight in protecting abusive or malicious behavior saying that it is protected by free speech. While I certainly don’t want my ability to read, write, say, or listen to the thoughts of others curtailed, I do feel that we aren’t approaching the problem correctly.

An enlightend, educated society, which practiced tolerance and acceptance, probably wouldn’t participate in lowest common denominator behavior like JuicyCampus, making the need to defend it moot. Unfortunately, for those of us who live in the United States, lowest common denominator behavior and expectations seem to be the rule of the day, rather than the exception.

Mahatma Gandhi was asked once, what he thought of Western Civilization. He answered that it, “would be a good idea.” His words are truer every day.

My experiences, in light of what happens in the article and in other incidents I have read, seem pale by comparison, but the constant knot of tension, the equating of school with pain, the sense of helplessness that pervaded my days in school, was no less damaging.

That we have created, and allowed to exist, an environment where people are singled out and attacked again and again is utterly appalling. Well meaning organizations have emasculated the school’s ability to control students by removing any real punishment or incentive to behave. The bully exists solely because the system allows him (or her) to exist. Placing the onus on the target of the attacks, and their families, only further victimizes them.

Bullies are cowards themselves, and they mask their fear and cowardice by picking on those they feel are weaker and unable to defend themselves. Corporeal punishment would only serve to convince the bully that they were justified in lashing out at others. Embarrassing the bully through public censure and exposure, while perhaps gratifying to think about, is only its own form of bullying. In order to end this problem I feel there are several things that must happen.

We need an atmosphere of zero tolerance from day one in school. I know that there are zero-tolerance policies in place already, and that there are many stories of children wrongly or absurdly punished through these programs. In order to make such a policy work you must sit down with all participants in the system and explain each action and its consequence. Merely having a policy and invoking it after the fact won’t work. Obviously, the policy would mature as the age of the participants matures. It might even be possible to involve more civically active students in the creation and maintenance of these policies by the time they are in high school. All of this would be an excellent exercise in citizenship and participatory government.

Counseling needs to be in place for everyone involved in a bullying incident. Not just the person attacked but the person or person doing the attacking. Drawing a parallel between this type of violence and domestic violence, programs where both sides are mandated into a counseling program are the most effective. Only addressing one side of the equation creates an imbalance that will result in escalation of the underlying causes, and will result in more violence.

Finally, society as a whole needs to step up and say that violence in the form of bullying, taunting, and teasing are not part of growing up. They are aberrant behaviors that, left unchecked in extreme cases, result in catastrophic violence; how many American schools have been the sites of shooting rampages? If we create a cauldron of angry emotions, clamp a lid on it, and ignore it, then we can’t be shocked or act innocent when it blows up and people are hurt or killed.