The allure of posting thoughts, feelings, and commentary online has generally been fueled by the freedom and (at least pseudo) anonymity that the Internet provides. A person can start a blog or post on numerous social networking sites without fear of reprisal, as he/she will generally use a pseudonym or simply leave an anonymous comment. However, as the Internet has become more mainstream, companies and organizations are increasingly trying to discover the identities of such posters and hold them accountable for their words, actions, or portrayed behavior. Two recent situations receiving news coverage illustrate this trend.

The first example involves an employee who posted an anonymous comment (which included a racial slur) to a Yahoo! message board discussing his company. The company, Alleghany Energy Service, discovered the post and sued to reveal the identity of this anonymous poster. The company eventually received a subpoena and compelled Yahoo! to reveal the poster’s identity, and then fired the poster for the racial slur. The employee is countersuing for wrongful termination, among other claims. GWU law professor Daniel Solove, in his blog Concurring Opinions, discusses this situation in greater detail, including analyzing the legal situation surrounding the original suit and the countersuit.

On a college level, many students are now members of a site called the Facebook, which describes itself as “an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools”. Students can post pictures and personal details, as well as engage in discussions about anything and join groups for common interests. However, not just students are taking note, and some students have found themselves held accountable for the pictures and words posted online. A student paper at Boston College, The Heights, covers in this article how students have been subject to disciplinary action and, in one case so far, expulsion at the hands of university officials. You can use the print feature to view all article text without having to register for the site, as clicking to view the next page will force you into a registration process. The article summarizes the situation with this statement: “Students at schools across the country have recently been charged with everything from alcohol related infractions to making threatening comments to a campus police officer - all from photos or information posted on the Facebook.”

Both of these stories show the difficulty of maintaining any sort of private online identity, separate and distinct from the real world. In both cases, the actions of the company/university are somewhat questionable, as they involve pursuing the employee/student outside of the work environment and into that individual’s actions at home. In the case of the university, though, the students’ homes may be university property, in which case different rules may apply.