Posted by Jen Suarez.
To what extent is defamation? From my last blog article, I defined defamation as “malicious and damaging misrepresentation,” where an organization was falsely accused of rape. However, can anyone play to the “defamation card” if they don’t like what other’s have to say? For example, Yelp.com is a website where consumers can post and rate the quality of businesses anonymously. The Rhodes Group, which is a Collin County Texas real estate firm, received a poor review on the Yelp website and is now suing on the grounds of defamation; they are requesting the name of the customer, whose username is “Lin L.” The Rhodes Group does not even believe that “Lin L.” is a real person. In fact, they openly suggest that this username belongs to someone from a competing organization, trying to ruin The Rhodes Group’s reputation. The Rhodes Group, however, is fighting in court against Public Citizen, which claims that revealing the user’s identity violates the user’s right to privacy. Though the negative Yelp review has been removed, there is no confirmation its removal was due to the impending lawsuit.
The Public Citizen lawyer, representing Yelp, stated that there is no justification for revealing the user’s identity, especially since The Rhodes Group did not file any complaint until well over a year after the review had been posted. According to its website, “Public Citizen maintains that the Rhodes Group’s claim violates the one-year statute of limitation for libel suits and, additionally, that the subpoena was issued in the wrong state and therefore cannot be enforced by the Texas court.” The Rhodes Group is fighting back stating, “You can’t use the First Amendment as a shield to make false and defamatory statements about an individual, particularly in a commercial arena.”
The Rhodes Group is absolutely right that Yelp cannot hide behind the “First Amendment Shield,” however, Yelp and Public Citizen are correct that the user’s identity should remain anonymous and there is no justification to reveal it. Bad, anonymous reviews, whether they are fake or genuine, are part of the online world. Millions of users have the ability to hide behind a keyboard and this allows us to bestow harsher criticism without fear of consequences. Freedom of speech does not include libel. Therefore, the result of this court case could determine how “free” freedom of speech actually is on the World Wide Web.
Jen is a business administration major with a concentration in management at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.