Free Speech online

I am a very strong believer in free speech, so I was torn after reading last week's business article on Juicycampus.com. If someone calls me a schmuck in public, I can either call them a name back or just let it slide. Or if it something specific, I can refute it. If I am not present, I can refute it later. And anyone listening can consider the source of the information to determine its credibility.

But online, things do get a little different. When something bad is said anonymously on a site like Juicycampus, there is no closing of the loop. The comment is anonymous so readers can't judge the source. Second, it is permanent so the damage lasts longer than live speech. And third, if someone Google's the person's name, they may get the comment out of context and not be able to judge its veracity or the reliability of the source.

I don't think we want to go to the extreme of holding a web site liable for what is posted. That would be too much an impediment to the development of active communities. And there are good business models that run on anonymity, especially with respect to reputation management.

And if we allow governments to subpoena the poster's identity, it eliminates the most important aspect of free speech - the ability to speak out against the government. Law enforcement access, even if a judicial warrant is required, is too potentially intimidating. Think of China or Burma.

So where is the balance? If we don't want to allow people to post anything, anywhere, completely anonymously (because then it becomes impossible to prosecute slander and libel), and we don't want to impede sites that allow anonymous postings, and we don't want to allow law enforcement to access anonymous posters' identities, then what?

My recommendation is that we just allow law enforcement to access the identity if there is probable cause of a crime (libel/slander), but not for anything else. And no fishing expeditions like the recording industry was able to get to track music file sharing. The standard of evidence needs to be strong enough to keep the Internet basically free.