Redditor Wins Fight to Stay Anonymous | Hacker News Reader

Redditor Wins Fight to Stay Anonymous

eff.org

88 pointsLiriel11 comments

Hardly much of a victory. In this case it was a civil suit brought forth by the private religious organization, the Jehovah's Witnesses for arguably silly reasons, and the final ruling rightly told them to piss off for being pedantic snoops. Had a government agency requested this against someone whistleblowing things about government incompetence and still lost in court, it would be more impressive.

I also note there's no mention of recouped legal costs, or any kind of penalty.

They filed a frivolous lawsuit with the intent to harass a critic, and have faced no consequences for doing so.

Jehovah Witnesses trying to find out the identity of one of their members who badmouthed them on the internet...

Good thing it didn't go through.

"The judge ordered disclosure of Darkspilver’s identity to Watch Tower’s lawyer, so the organization could try to shore up its legal claims."

Does this mean Darkspilver's identity was reveled to the Jehovah witnesses after all?

Don't know, but the EFF appealed that decision, so if Reddit didn't go ahead with it, the user would be safe now.

How could any organisation possibly argue that sharing their advertisement is copyright infringement? If you change it.. maybe. But arguably an advertisements principal aim is to be seen. It's like suing someone for trademark violation because they show your company logo in an article about your company or product - absurd.

> copyright infringement? If you change it.. maybe.

I don't think whether something counts as a copyright violation ever depends on having done a modification.

> It's like suing someone for trademark violation because they show your company logo in an article about your company or product

Which is doable I believe, though maybe rarely done in practice. I haven't watched TV in a long time, but I remember how logos needed to be covered from products to avoid lawsuits.

I think the idea comes from people having the right to control how their trademark is portrayed.

> absurd

Sure.

Now if I could just get Reddit to undo my shadowban, I could congratulate him.

Just make a new account.

That would violate the terms of service - creating an account specifically to avoid a ban, that is.

Besides, if Reddit legitimately banned me for something I said (they won't tell me what, at least not yet) I'm not going to make an account so I can keep contributing to their site.

Hear, hear!

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