But prosecuting online harassers is extremely difficult. Most harassment cases aren’t serious enough to involve the police, so it’s up to the victim to track down those responsible. Legally, the websites are protected; in the U.S., section 230 of the Communications Decency Act virtually immunizes them from liability for anything individuals post. Canadian jurisprudence has largely followed suit, under the rationale that online entities like Yahoo! shouldn’t be responsible for each user’s actions. A case now before California’s 4th District Court of Appeal demonstrates the complexities. On Halloween 2006, Nicole Catsouras, an 18-year-old from Orange County, Calif., died while driving her father’s Porsche. The gruesome photos of the scene, showing the girl’s partly decapitated head and bloody body, were leaked by highway patrol dispatchers, and soon spread on the Web. The family started receiving anonymous text messages and emails with the images attached. They stopped using the Internet and even resorted to home-schooling one of their surviving daughters. They’ve sued the police (so far unsuccessfully), but everyone else, including the sites that spread the photos, has emerged unscathed. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting the group Anonymous was involved in spreading the pictures, but it is extremely difficult to track down real-world identities.
Canadian and U.S. law largely protects individuals who post anonymously, says Richard Stobbe, a Calgary-based intellectual property and Internet lawyer, who writes a popular blog on these issues. That is slowly changing as judges wake up to the threat, but right now victims of online harassment have few legal rights. They can file a lawsuit asking the site to release user identities, he says, but there is no guarantee they will win. And if they do win, the website might not keep any records. Sites can track users through their computer’s IP addresses, but websites don’t always turn on this feature, explains Michael Fertik of ReputationDefender, a U.S. firm that provides support and legal help for victims of online attacks. And when the libel is posted from a public computer, you’re out of luck.
In essence, this gives sites like 4chan carte blanche. Sometimes channers work for society, rooting out predators and cat torturers. At others, they engage in cyber-terrorism and harassment. The choice is entirely theirs. Anonymity enables a range of behaviours that wouldn’t otherwise occur. And our laws, says Stobbe, haven’t yet evolved to keep up.
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