“Come out, come out wherever you are!” could be the title of a lawsuit filed in Davidson County on Monday wherein a couple living in Old Hickory Village are suing an anonymous blogger(s) for libel and invasion of privacy.  According to The Tennessean,

The lawsuit would be difficult to win because of free speech protection under the First Amendment, according to Robert Cox, president of the New Rochelle, N.Y-based Media Bloggers Association.

The Swartzes would have to prove that the postings are malicious because the couple is in the *public eye, said Cox, who is not involved in the case. Don Swartz is a town engineer in Nolensville, and both Swartzes have been part of the Old Hickory Village Neighborhood Association.

I’ve often been concerned yet grateful for the anonymity of the Internet… very much a mixed reaction for sure.  I believe that Big Brother is watching our sites (scary enough), but there are also about a kazillion “little brothers” also watching who are ready to plunge a knife in your back.   To those trolls I can only say, “Bite me, you anonymous coward.” 

However there are times when anonymity is important.  Perhaps in a case where someone fears for his or her job if they were to become a whistleblower, and yet information has to get out in order to right a wrong.  For example, and this happened to a friend of mine, you work at a nursing home and know the head nutritionist/dietary technician is being forced to buy substandard food by the administrator.  If you go public, you get fired.   If you don’t, patients with no families to watch over them continue to eat food on the verge of rotting.  Anonymous can work in this situation

Going back to the * in the newspaper pull-quote, the next issue that begs to be addressed is whether we are “public figures.”  If someone started writing anonymous nasty posts about us, we may not have recourse because we’ve crossed over from private citizen to being in the public eye (therefore public figure) by virtue of writing here, commenting there, and writing on other sites that are easily accessible with one Google click.  For example, I’ve written about my hometown in Kentucky where extensive members of my family still live.  Bear with me on this… a good friend of mine called the other night to tell me a parent in another Girl Scout troop called her leader asking who I am because she’d done a Google search looking for a troop in this small town (my hometown) they are moving to.  Their search looped back to me - it was ironic we both live in middle Tennessee - and in an instant I became a spokesperson for the small town and that Girl Scout community.  If it’s something more nefarious than a Girl Scout parent - a troll for instance - we could be stuck.

Thre big issues, no easy answers:  Anonymity good?  Anonymity bad?  And are we bloggers public figures.  What do you think? And do we even have a choice?