I thoguht that libel had to do real damage and injury? Is Cohen claiming to be highly injured by this website? As a public figure, she should know that her right to privacy and freedom from insult will decrease significantly.

Unless the libel is shown to cause great harm (and I don't see how it could in this case), then the case should be a non-starter, and the website's owner remain anonymous.

I'm with you, right up to the last part. All of your questions involve issues that are typically raised in any defamation action. Obviously the plaintiff has to satisfy certain elements, but without the defendant being served, she doesn't have the chance to prove her case at all. I could easily see how her commercial earnings are impacted by her image, so that damage to reputation would have led to actual commercial loss. But, I'm speculating and so are you. If there's no defendant, there's no opportunity for her to prove her case at all.

I guess the issue is, why be so protective of anonymous internet bloggers, when both print and broadcast media have lived with accountability all along? Whatever their problems may have been, they're not being put out of business by endless libel suits.

The major defense offered in favor of the broadest possible interpretation of the First Amendment, is that it protects one's right to speak but not to be free of the consequences of that speech. To preclude open debate and public accountability by allowing one side to enjoy the anonymity he would deny his target, would be to undercut the very rationale of the First Amendment itself: encouraging an open forum in which ideas are challenged.

It's about time. I recently learned about a Facebook page where a bunch of girls from my daughter's school "slam" other girls -- and we're talking 13-year-olds here. People get emboldened by the prospect of being able to post online anonymously and without consequence, but the people who are being hurt are real people who don't have the benefit of hiding behind a pseudonym.

I don't get why anybody would be upset that the exact same libel laws (and protections) that apply to the print and broadcast media, should also apply to the internet. A newspaper or TV station that spread this kind of stuff would have to defend their actions in court, and I really don't get why a website should be treated differently.

I also don't buy the argument that the victim isn't really harmed because reasonable people know not to believe anonymous internet posts. There are plenty of people out there who believe there's no smoke without fire -- and many employers will routinely do a google search on a prospective hire. In the example of the 13-year-olds I mentioned above, the damage done was very, very real. Not everybody can just roll with the punches.

It's hypocrisy to expect that you can identify a real human, publish her name and address, and invite the trolls of the world to harass her and ruin her career -- and then argue that your own identity needs to remain hidden. Tracy, I really don't get your attitude here, and the snarky remark about "clean" whores in the modeling industry is pure high-school mean girl stuff.