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Monday, August 24, 2009

Teh Internets You Can Maybe Hide Behind Your Mammoth Piles of Money

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 3:25 PM

Last week, I posted a little bit on the anonymous blogger who was sued by a model named Liskula Cohen. The blogger called Cohen a "skank" and an "old hag". Google was forced by the court to reveal the blogger's identity. Her name is Rosemary Port, and you can see her fighting off New York Post photographers here.

Today, Port is talking about suing Google for $15 million. If this lawsuit happens, it ensures that the name Liskula Cohen will forever be tied via Google to the words "skank" and "old hag".

In other bloggy news, there is a bit of a kerfluffle in the works about attribution of news sources. CNN allegedly ripped off 3 years' of one reporter's work in a single blog post. You can read a (somewhat confusing) run-through of recent internet attribution problems here. (Attribution for this link goes to SarahW on Twitter for bringing this story to my attention.)

Comments (9) RSS

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Maybe Sarah Jessica Parker will sue http://sarahjessicaparkerlookslikeahorse… and we'll finally find out, in court documents, whether or not she does in fact look like a horse.

Or maybe she's got a good sense of humor.

Posted by Baconcat on August 24, 2009 at 3:46 PM

In the case of CNN, it wasn't a single blog post, it was a segment of Anderson Cooper 360. CNN's producers apparently read Radley Balko's work about Dr. Hayne in REASON magazine, then called up all his sources and reported it as their own -- ignoring the fact that it was Balko's on-the-ground journalism that helped free several innocent men and put Hayne on the hot seat in the first place. CNN even told several of the sources for the piece it found them via Balko's articles in REASON.

It's nothing new, of course, but when big media outlets are constantly complaining that bloggers steal their work without attribution or compensation, it's highly hypocritical of CNN to report this story while completely ignoring the journalist who broke it wide open in the first place.

Radley Balko's site is theagitator.com , he is working harder than anyone out there in documenting the militarization and overreach of law enforcement, the stupidity of the drug war and the rise of the American police state, but he identifies as a libertarian and works for a libertarian magazine, so the average Slogger will call him names and ignore him.

Posted by Mostly a lurker on August 24, 2009 at 4:01 PM

If anonymous internet trolling is impossible, the terrorists win.

Posted by undead ayn rand on August 24, 2009 at 4:33 PM

If I never hear another word about the trivial personal lives of skanky New York twat bloggers again, it will be too soon. I don't care who you're sleeping with, who you used to sleep with, who you're not sleeping with, who your ex is sleeping with, who your ex isn't sleeping with, what your ex's new girl or boyfriend thinks, what you blogged about it, who got pissed off because you blogged about it -- JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, PEOPLE.

New York used to be a ferment of new and exciting ideas. Now it's just a bunch of damaged narcissists chasing each other's reflections. I sincerely hope that both Liskula Cohen and Rosemary Port and everyone they have ever met all die in a fire. Soon.

Posted by Fnarf

on August 24, 2009 at 4:38 PM

@4: I see your blog is listed as a "friend of" Slog.

Will you be wearing your finest, or will you go out like a viking, wearing oil-soaked animal skins?

Posted by Baconcat on August 24, 2009 at 4:40 PM

@4,

The city's too expensive for anyone interesting to live there.

Posted by keshmeshi on August 24, 2009 at 4:53 PM

Should have just called her a skank and a hag, since she didn't qualify as an old hag.

New York is dead, and will remain so until Nathan Lane is kicked off the New Yorker list of movie and theatre reviewers. The guy is a hack who has no idea what he's writing about.

Kind of like Fnarf, but without a brain (which Fnarf has).

Posted by Will in Seattle

on August 24, 2009 at 5:10 PM

@5, I'm not opposed to blogs (though my own blog is shit, I grant you). I'm opposed to blogging about blogging about blogs, and blogging about blog romances and blog breakups and blog summits and other stuff that really isn't even interesting to the people it's happening to, let alone the people who read about it, or read about other blogs that mention it. There has to be a there there.

In my blog, when I was maintaining it, I made a serious effort to put in new content that was about something; for instance, Aboriginal art, or Ossie Clark, or unusual liquor.

Posted by Fnarf

on August 24, 2009 at 7:15 PM

A blog that is dedicated to hating a private citizen may be "protected speech", but a person has the right to know their accuser. This is VERY different than a blog or any other form of expression about a public official. This is the distinction that many people are forgetting.

The court's decision to force Google to identify the stupid bitch who was bitching about another stupid bitch does NOT mean that people posting the next "Pentagon Papers" will be outed for government reprisal.

Posted by Sir Vic on August 25, 2009 at 9:33 AM