The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that unless there is substantial evidence, an elected official cannot claim he has been defamed and use a lawsuit to unmask an anonymous blogger.


The Delaware Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that if an elected official claims he has been defamed by an anonymous blogger, he has to provide substantial evidence to prove it. Otherwise he cannot use a lawsuit to unmask the blogger and insist that his identity is revealed.

That standard, the court said, “will more appropriately protect against the chilling effect on anonymous First Amendment Internet speech that can arise when plaintiffs bring trivial defamation lawsuits primarily to harass or unmask their critics”.

The case was filed by Patrick Cahill, a councilman in Smyrna, Del, against a blogger, John Doe, who had made remarks such as, Mr. Cahill was divisive and had “an obvious mental deterioration” and “is as paranoid as everyone in the town thinks he is”, according to court records.

The councilman wanted to know the identity of the blogger and the blogger had filed a “protective order”. The blogger had lost the case in the lower court and had appealed to the Supreme Court.

According to The New York Times, in a 33-page opinion, the five justices reversed the lower court, saying the judge used a standard that was incorrect because it was not stringent enough.

The court said, “The Internet provides a means of communication where a person wronged by statements of an anonymous poster can respond instantly, can respond to the alleged defamatory statements on the same site or blog, and thus, can, almost contemporaneously, respond to the same audience that initially read the allegedly defamatory statements.”

The court said its decision was the first time any state or federal Supreme Court had ruled on the rights of anonymous bloggers.

 

 

 

 

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