I had a rif with a poster on another message board, someone who has gone out of her way with consistent personal attacks against me. Apparently she has done some “personal investigation” about me. How could this be if she does not know my last name? Could it be the Moderators gave her my personal information? Could they do that? I thought my information would be private.
This person is vindictive by nature, very defensive, and a sort of cyber bully. As soon as you call her on her own actions, she becomes defensive. Bottom line: if she posts something personal about me which causes injury in respect to my profession, would I have legal recourse?
You have to talk to a lawyer about that. That is really the best answer we can give on these boards. It wouldn’t be unheard of that you could win a case against her but it might be expensive. One thing that I have learned (or maybe not. I am not a lawyer) is the tricky thing about most defamation suits is that you have to quantify damage to yourself or your business in some way and that can be hard to show.
How much information have you given away about yourself in the course of your normal participation in the discussions on that message board? I’m pretty sure that anyone who had enough time on their hands could, if they really wanted, find out my real identity by trawling through my posts on this board. And i’m sure that’s true of quite a lot of Dopers.
Why don’t you talk to the moderators/administrators of the board, and make sure they haven’t given away any information about you. I’d be pretty surprised if they had.
Just out of interest, are you certain that she has private information about you? Has she demonstrated this in some way? Or might she just be pulling your chain?
Can’t help you out with the legal aspect, i’m afraid.
Again, just to repeat, you do need professional advice on this sort of thing.
However, one thing that I think is general enough for us to mention here - the essense of defamation is that it’s untrue. You won’t be able to get a defamation case off the ground if she posts material that’s factually correct, no matter how personal or confidential it may be.
That’s not to say that you might not have other legal areas of recourse to prevent her doing this. But you’ll need to contact a lawyer to see what remedies you may have available.
I give away alot of general information… but never my last name, DOB or SS #… aren’t those the things they tell you to keep personal? I don’t really have anything to hide… but this person is so vindictive, I wouldn’t put it past her to try to contact my employers and defame my character.
I just pm’d one of the Moderators that I am more familiar with… .although we differ politically, they guy has to be the most fair person I know. Believe me, I would have been long gone from there if he was not. He’s very good at moderating!! He’s an acquaintence of this woman, but hopefully, he will act as a mediator and ensure she does not expose my personal information.
I only know what she has said to others, that she found out background information about me. What the hell does that mean?
Look, we all know politics can be a hot topic, but to take it to this level is downright creepy. I was a regular on the George Magazine political forum for years, and an incident happened where someone posted my name and address, which was pretty haunting… I did report it to authorities, but long forgot exactly who I reported it to…
Well, if the defamation led to a threat to my employment, I think I would have a case then… Hopefully the moderator will contact her and calm her down, I’m hoping anyway.
Sure you’d have a case, as long as you’ve got a couple of hundred thousand quid to pay the lawyers. Plus, you’d need actual contact details for the person involved. you can’t sue an anonymous person over the internet.
You can be effectively stalked without divulging first or last name or SSN.
Most posters eventually reveal their approximate age.
Most posters reveal their city.
Most posters reveal odd personal facts. Some of these facts are apparent to co-workers.
Most posters reveal their occupation and many reveal their past occupations.
Most posters provide physical descriptions of themselves.
Stalking example:
I know Doper0071 (fictional here, not describing any real Doper007 that may exist) works as a Mercedes salesman and has for two years. He spent 5 years previously at a Buick dealer.
Doper0071 lives in Montgomery, AL but is originally from Memphis, TN.
I know Doper0071 is 47 years old and likes to ski, collect guns, go to Alanis Morisette concerts and is married to his second wife.
Doper0071 has participated in a thread on weight loss. I can assume Doper0071 weighs between 240 and 260.
Think I can find Doper0071 at work?
Could I follow him home at quitting time without him noticing me?
I’ve never bothered doing this kind of thing, but if you run across the right kind of nut, they might bother.
If the person is threatening to publish private, personal information, then that may be blackmail rather than defamation, so there may be other remedies.
Of course defamation is a very complex area of the law, which varies considerably from country to country. What is not defamatory in the US might be defamatory in Canada or England.
And then there’s the question of proving a case. You would need to identify this person, and prove that she took actions which amounted to defamation or blackmail, and on an anoymous message board that might be difficult.