Possibly libelous "Russet Noon" drama

[cruiscin_lan]

I only just joined this community, although I have been lurking with interest for some time. I have also been following the whole "Russet Noon" wank-saga unfold, particularly via Journalfen user Caito's recent fandom wank posts

Comments

[frabjously]

Defamation is about lowering someone's character in the eyes of others. Simply posting private information wouldn't be defamation but may breach a privacy tort and/or legislation.

I won't say any more because I haven't studied US law and as I understand it the law of defamation is quite different because there's a guaranteed freedom of speech.

[cruiscin_lan]

I'm pretty sure that what was posted on the website would constitute defamation, then. I added screencaps that reflect what the website used to look like.

I know it was a violation of the webhost's terms of service (I think one of the first commandments of webhosts is "Thou shalt not post personal information without permission") but I was wondering, in the event that they were slow or unable to respond to a complaint, if there was anything someone could do to get the information removed or blocked.

It seems, however, that the website author has edited the site herself at this point.

[rubymiene]

Defamation also has to be false and not opinion/hyperbole. Since I don't know anything about these people, I couldn't tell if anything was actually untrue, but nothing looked even close to being defamation. I don't understand what you mean by photoshopped. Did she replace some of the text with other text to make it look like Caito said something she didn't say, or used photoshop to add snarky comments?
And it's not private if it's publicly available through whois.
The terms of service is a civil contract, and one could try to sue the service provider in an attempt to enforce it. If it's actually defamation, one could try a Doe suit against the poster, but that must meet a higher standard than normal, requiring concrete examples at the initial stage.

[cruiscin_lan]

And this is why I didn't go to law school. I get terribly confused about defamation, slander, libel, etc. I tend to go by their connotations and not their legal definitions!

The photoshopping was done by taking entries and adding comments to them that were from other threads or other entries entirely (for example, one comment taken from Livejournal was added to a Journalfen entry). I'm not positive but I think several entries also might have been spliced together. Since Caito has since taken down or locked all the personal entries in her journal, I don't have any way of knowing.