Judge Orders Unmasking Of Wikipedia Users; Fails To Follow Standard Anonymity Protections: "Over the years, we've covered tons of lawsuits about attempts by people to uncover the identity of anonymous critics. Frequently, the aggrieved parties figure out some way to file a defamation lawsuit and use that to uncover the name of the person in question, without much interest in actually going through the rest of the legal proceedings. Judges tend to be a mixed bag on this issue, with many judges recognizing a strong First Amendment free speech value in allowing anonymous speech. In fact, many are (finally) coalescing around the
'Dendrite' rules, which outline the conditions under which anonymous online users can or should be identified. The Dendrite hurdle is pretty high, and for a good reason: because anonymity is important.
However, it appears that a magistrate judge in Colorado who admitted he was unaware of the Dendrite case or the associated 'rule,' decided to
just ignore it once being informed of it, and went forward with an order to unmask some anonymous Wikipedia users who the company Faconnable claimed defamed Faconnable. This is worrisome, and thankfully, Public Citizen is pushing back on this, highlighting the importance of protecting anonymity online. Thankfully, another court has put a stay on identifying the guy in question while this issue is hashed out, but it's still unfortunate how many judges are uninformed on issues they're ruling about.
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