And That’s Official!
- Update : Law-talking guy Nick Abrahams and law-talking girl Victoria Dunn write ‘Bloggers lose their cloak of anonymity’ (August 21, 2009) | Liskula Cohen is part of a series on Whores [!] on Encyclopedia Dramatica.
ZOG’s man @ Fairfax writes:
Model forces Google to reveal ‘skank’ blogger’s identity
Asher Moses
August 19, 2009A former Vogue Australia cover girl has won a landmark court battle to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” and an “old hag”.
Model Liskula Cohen sued Google in January in the hope of forcing the company to reveal the person responsible for allegedly defamatory comments on a blog called Skanks in NYC, which was hosted by Google’s Blogger service.
“I would have to say the first-place award for ‘Skankiest in NYC’ would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen,” the anonymous blogger wrote.
“How old is this skank? 40 something? She’s a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank.”
Cohen, who is actually 37, believed the posts were defamatory but was forced to take action against Google in order to unmask the blogger’s identity before she could take further action…
Since then, the blogger has apparently not only been identified by Cohen, but forgiven by her too — although defamation proceedings against her (the alleged defamer is female) may still commence (Model confronts ‘skank’ blogger, Asher Moses, August 20, 2009).
The case obviously raises a wide range of questions, but in terms of background, ‘Cohen v. Google (Blogger)’, Sam Bayard, Citizen Media Law Project, January 6, 2009 is excellent — and provides a copy of Justice Madden’s August 17 ruling as a PDF, as well as a range of related links — as is Aaron Morris’s post ‘Anonymous Posters Are Not Immune from Defamation Claims’, Internet Defamation Blog, March 14, 2009.
As noted, the trouble started with a blog titled ‘Skanks in NYC’ — http://skanksnyc.blogspot.com/ — hosted on Blogger (owned by Google). It was established in August 2008, and consisted of five posts, made on the same day, all concerning Cohen. The blog went offline sometime in March, and I can find no trace of it anywhere.
I myself have been threatened with legal action inre allegedly ‘defamatory’ comment twice: first, in April 2008, by the proprietors of mathaba.net; secondly, on August 6, 2009. On that occasion, I received an email from Mark Klemens, Managing Director of the Australian-based company Profile Talent Management (“a strategic, proactive and well connected talent management company that successfully creates and maximizes opportunities for its clients with major media partners”). Mark wrote:
Dear Sir, We represent Dylan Lewis. It has come to our notice that a website titled “slackbastards” which appears to be controlled or owned by you has made reference to Dylan. Under the subheading “Number One’s” references to Dylan of a defamatory nature have been made. We have obtained legal advice confirming the status of the material as being offensive and defamatory. We seek to have the article/paragraph removed immediately from the website.
Should you not remove the offending material we are instructed to brief solicitors on behalf of our client to seek an injunction and damages.
For further deets, see : Dylan Lewis : NOT AN ANNOYING PERSON (August 10, 2009).
Neither case generated any interest outside of a very small (tiny) circle of fellow bloggers.
TO BE CONTINUED…
That’s setting a scary precedent for all bloggers.
The estate of Anna Nicole Smith also went after a blogger for defamation.
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/people/blogger-jailed-in-anna-nicole-smith-defamation-suit-20090601-bsr5.html
what a skank. Make her pay!
tyler d.,
Wha-?
http://liskulacohenskankreallybig.blogspot.com/
I’d never heard of the model in question – she’s never at the ZOG meetings – and had no idea what the ‘Encyclopedia Dramatica’ was. I guess I should have expected that anyone who makes use of the concept ‘skank’ to criticize someone would be a little on the reactionary side, and indeed these people attacking Ms Cohen seem about as revolting as anyone I’ve ever come across on-line, with their cute anti-Semitic and racist ways and their charming obsessions with the apparently appalling idea that she may have had sex with someone who isn’t sufficiently white. Plus she’s a Jew and all – that name is a dead giveaway really, but well-done to all for figuring it out. Suing them may be a little stupid and set a bad precedent, but the authors of the anti-Cohen texts do write effectively: I felt a strong desire to punch them in the face.
As I understand it, in this context, the term ‘skank’ was originally applied to Cohen by one of her frenemies, Rosemary Port, a fellow night person in New York.
Quite a party we have found
Mantovani flooding the lounge
Polite people, crazy feet
Night people… funky but neat
Burt Bacharach… a zillion strings
Cool aromatic… luxury surroundings
See no evil… cheat cheat
Night people, funky but neat
Mr. Cavendish… meets Elizabeth
What happens is none of my business
Quite legal… short and sweet
Night people, funky but neat
Stereo heapdphones… whisper and shout
Invisible saxophones fade in and out
Like treacle… tacky but sweet…
Night people, funky but neat
Twilight restaurants… you get it on a plate
No matter what you want…
But you’ve got to wait
Don’t get the needle… and never speak
Night people, funky but neat
I like the nightlife… give me danger
I had a nice wife… she was a stranger
One of the people, I never meet
Night people, funky but neat
Quite a party we have found…
Maseratis, Afghan Hounds
The right people… the wrong street
Night people, funky but neat
ED has been around for a while. Further disco:
What The Hell Are 4chan, ED, Something Awful, And “b”?
Nick Douglas
Gawker
January 18 2008
See also : “The Streisand Effect”
Lee Baker of CMLP has vehemently criticized the Liskula Cohen lawsuit since it was first filed. He called it attention-whoring, money-grubbing, and implied that Liskula Cohen was all of the things the blogger mentioned. Lee Baker has no right to try to legitimize the blogger’s comments by implying they were true. He doesn’t know Liskula Cohen. Lee Baker is only a college student who is plastering his worthless tripe all over the internet! He is a con artist offering his “legal” opinions when he is not even a lawyer. Someone ought to report this moron to the college he supposedly attends that he is pretending to be a lawyer when he is just a student.
“The Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a research center founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development, and the Center for Citizen Media at Arizona State University, an initiative to enhance and expand grassroots media.”
Lee Baker contributes to the work of the CMLP and his blog is here.
Clck this link if you want to read a bunch of garbage by a foreigner attending a U.S. college. Lee Baker is not even a U.S. citizen, and he is certainly not a licensed attorney. How much credibility does this give the CMLP for allowing Lee Baker to “anaylyze” complex issues of U.S. law? CMLP has the audacity to promote this Lee Baker, a foreign college student, as an expert on U.S. law.
Today is Thanksgiving and Lee Baker of CMLP is eating cock!
Er… wtf?
[Defamatory post about Lee Baker.]
The notion of “free speech” is in need of a closer look, it is not truly free; it comes at a high cost. Free speech may also be used for wicked online libel attacks. An expression that hurts someone who is untainted must ne’er be tolerated, the price is inordinate.
Notwithstanding, there are loads of asocial parasites who apply this freedom to bring noble people down to their level. Ofttimes these masked bottom dwellers suffer from some class of antisocial personality disorder (diagnosed psychopaths when movies were B&W) or a related character disorder, & are driven only through hate & vindictive, narcissistic instincts. To them, hurting others is fun; they are in fact driven by the suffering of others; a victim’s desperate attempts to escape is their sick trophy, the clinical term is “narcissistic supply”. Regular citizens such as 97% of the readers of this article are unable begin to envisage what makes these individuals tick. Stop for a moment, attempt to envisage not having a conscience; it is simply unimaginable.
This miserable public blight has grown in the last ten years and manifested itself primarily through anonymous cyber defamation. There have been internet libel law suits where authorities issued orders insisting that anonymous and vindictive blogspot.com users can be revealed by subpoena, these orders are often a source of indignation for a trivial yet rumbustious band of fanatical proponents who reckon that freedom of expression should be unconditional and a talker or author shouldn’t be held to account for their words, without regard to the nobility or maliciousness behind the speech. Many reckon that if these same protesting activists were to witness the paralyzing impact of a relentless internet enabled sociopath and the physical, vocational, emotional, & social wellness of victims or their loved ones; they would not be so vocal in their opposition.
A natural aspect of anonymous online libel is that it has less credibility when critically assessed by level-headed and objective observers. Nonetheless, there is a newfangled dynamic with the crisis of malignant & anonymous online authors. While the rhetoric could be seen for what it is, if the victim is being “Googled” for a job, contract awards, Boy Scout leadership (or dating), then the individual conducting the due diligence needs to look at the potential public relations risks associated with associating with the target. Although the potential employer may see through the denunciation, the decision maker will need to give weight to what their customers and partners will ponder if they are not as clever and objective.