This article from the statesman.com caught my attention because it deals with blogging/social media and law enforcement.
Police ready to ‘take on’ commenters, chief says [Excerpt]
People who misrepresent themselves as officials in online comments could face civil, criminal penalties, Acevedo says.
By Tony Plohetski AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, September 18, 2009
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo says he and some of his officers have been harassed, lied about and had their identities falsely used in online blogs and in reader comment sections on local media Internet sites.
They’ve had enough.
In a meeting this month with department brass, Acevedo and the group discussed how they think such posts erode public trust in the department and how they have been wrongly maligned.
They have since researched their legal options and decided that from now on, they might launch formal investigations into such posts, Acevedo said. He said investigators might seek search warrants or subpoenas from judges to learn the identities of the authors — he thinks some could be department employees — and possibly sue them for libel or file charges if investigators think a crime was committed.
“A lot of my people feel it is time to take these people on,” Acevedo said. “They understand the damage to the organization, and quite frankly, when people are willfully misleading and lying, they are pretty much cowards anyway because they are doing so under the cloak of anonymity.”
The effort to crack down on potentially illegal statements or comments that are possibly libelous — those published with the goal of defaming a person — is the second time in recent months that the department has confronted new social media.
In March, the social networking site Twitter shut down a fake account that pretended to issue official Austin police bulletins after the department and the Texas attorney general’s office complained.
University of Texas law professor David Anderson said the hosts of sites where potentially libelous comments are posted are granted immunity by federal laws. Those who post comments can still be sued, however.
One of the reasons I signed up for all the major social media outlets I could think of was an effort to protect my “Net name”… such as it is. I figure if my “name” and reputation are damaged it should be me doing the damage. While the internet has done much to level the playing field for the vast majority of people, not unlike the printing press did in its day, it certainly has its dark and damaging side.
There is no doubt that the law, and its ancillary legal precedent, are catching up to the way people use – and abuse – the internet. Like laws and enforcement issues there will be those that we find we agree with and those that we won’t, but like with all laws and enforcement, there is usually a reason they have come about. That reason is not because of the 95% who understand social norms and acceptable behavior, but because of the remaining 5%.
Rules and laws are a natural consequence of civilization and societies, or even when two or more people find themselves interacting. Even a family unit has rules of what is and what is not acceptable behavior. Just because the internet is a virtual interaction doesn’t mean it isn’t an interaction just the same.
I am not a fan of cyber anonymity, yet I know that there is a genuine time and place for such. Frankly if you can’t “own” what you say, openly acknowledge that what you write [or say] is yours I don’t have much interest in reading or hearing what you have to say.
Yes, much of my writing is published under a pseudonym, but in each outlet that it is I also publish my real name and the area in which I reside, as well as my picture if the outlet provides the means to upload one in a profile. Studies show that when people hide behind the anonymity of the web they can be far more abusive and ill-mannered than they would be in their real world lives.
As the internet evolves and our usage evolves things will change. The internet will change and we will change. I have no delusions that those changes will all be positive, but I hope that at least some of them will. But I cannot fault people, even police and public officials, wanting to protect their names and reputations. Not one iota.
Posted via web from SophiaZoe
