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Comment by SideburnsOfDoom | Hacker News Reader

> What's more disturbing is that you seem to think there's content which should be banned from being published.

If you'd read TFA, you'd know that this case is where the trolls impersonated a woman, setting up a facebook profile with her name and photos on it - so that people who knew her IRL thought it was her profile. That profile painted her as a paedophile and drug dealer. They did this just for fun.

I'm pretty sure that identity theft and libel (or the equivalent definitions in other legal systems) are illegal just about everywhere; and can and should result in this content being "banned from being published", and the anonymity of the people doing it being stripped away.

This law could be over-broad, I don't know, but if you find the take-down the most disturbing part of this case, check your sense of proportion.

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There already are laws against identity theft, so we don't need another one that has the convenient side effect of adding more ways to cut free speech. This law might be used in rare cases like this, but probably more often to shut up negative opinions about policy and large companies.

Can we be careful with the term "identity theft", please? Creating a fake social network profile for the lulz should not ever be a crime. Taking out credit in someone else's name should be.

A friend is being federally prosecuted (a five-year felony!) for identity theft... for possessing a list of email addresses.

Please, slow your roll.

> Can we be careful with the term "identity theft", please?

Ok, lets be careful with it:

> "Identity theft is a form of stealing someone's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name. The victim of identity theft (here meaning the person whose identity has been assumed by the identity thief) can suffer adverse consequences if they are held accountable for the perpetrator's actions"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft

Taking out credit in someone else's name fits that definition exactly. Just possessing a list of email addresses does not at all.

Now, as for making a fake facebook profile with someone's name and photos: "someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity" yes, that fits.

"typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits" - no, but note that is "typically" not "always".

"The victim of identity theft can suffer adverse consequences" - yes, that happened.

So on the whole I would say that the definition of identity theft fits in this case.

Yeah, that sucks, but I don't think that you should need a special anti-bullying law to find out who the dicks are. It's just identity theft.

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