Anonymous no more: Online commenters identities to be revealed
Posted Apr 14, 2010 01:11:34 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Halifax’s fire chief has won a court order for information that may identify who posted defamatory comments about him and his deputy.
The comments were written on The Coast weekly newspaper’s website on an article about racism in the fire service.
Fire Chief Bill Mosher and Deputy Chief Stephen Thurber were targeted in the online comments.
Michelle Awad, their lawyer, says they are considering defamation suits against the comments’ authors.
“They have a decision to make once they get the information,” says Awad, adding that they will need to wait to see if the people can be identified.
The Coast publisher, Kyle Shaw, says they left the decision to the judge because this is new territory for everyone.
“These are not journalistic sources,” says Shaw. “If it was a journalistic source I have an obligation and I have legal protection.”
If they can’t figure out who wrote the comments, the applicants will likely come back to court to try to get that info from internet service providers.
