Can hyperlinking be defamatory?

A case before the Supreme Court of Canada depends on this question:

Canada would be offside with other English-speaking countries if legal restrictions were imposed on the exploding practice of linking to online postings, the Supreme Court of Canada was told Tuesday.

The court reserved judgment after a three-hour hearing in the case of Lake Cowichan writer Jon Newton. Several lawyers representing a variety of interests argued that exposing writers like Newton to lawsuits if they link to a defamatory posting would cast a wide chill.

Several judges seemed receptive to the argument, including Justice Louise Charron, who speculated that Internet users would be afraid to link to other material if the court made them legally responsible for their actions.

The appeal was brought to the Supreme Court by Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes, who alleges that Newton, who runs the website p2pnet.net, defamed him by linking to a reputation-smearing article in a 2006 post about free speech.

From the Vancouver Sun. I'm pretty confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the lower court's decision, which ruled that hyperlinks are analogous to footnotes and are not publications themselves, but we'll have to see how it goes. Any other ruling, however, would be a travesty. For one thing, I'd have to think twice about continuing this blog; what if someone decides that something I've linked to is defamatory? Or what if you link to something that links to something else that's defamatory? If Crookes gets his way, you wouldn't want to risk linking to anything. And of course, without links a blog -- and indeed, the entire Web -- is almost worthless.

Vigilante hunt for puppy tosser targets wrong person

You've probably heard of the awful story of the girl throwing puppies in the river. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of folks out there who are out for blood. What's really unfortunate is that their wrath targeted the wrong person (translated from the original source):

A bad joke? Or real? An internet video shows a young woman laughing while drowning puppies. Now the users are hunting for the supposed perpetrator - and are threatening a girl from Aying near Munich.

The video is not for tender sensibilities: A blond girl in a red hooded pullover is standing on a bank, next to her a white bucket with fluffy, fidgeting puppies. She graps one after the other and throws them in the water. The controversial animal rights organisation Peta offers a reward for identifying the teenager. "Peta offers a reward of 2000 dollars for information which could lead to arrest and conviction of those persons" responsible for the content of the video.

Since then, a downright hunt for the girl is taking part on the net: "I hope they find you and throw you into jail, you evil, repulsive creature!" writes a user on the Peta site. Consecutively, a girl from the community Aying in the Munich area came to the attention of the riled-up internet community: A user published name and telephone number of the eighteen-year-old student on the web.

Since then, the internet has developed into a nightmare for the girl: She is insulted by phone by callers from all over the world, even her life is threatened. Now, the police must protect the young woman. And all that just because an unknown person on the video platform Youtube claims that she is the girl who in a movie laughs while throwing cute puppies into a river.

"Since then, the girl is being strongly threatened," says police spokesman Peter Reichl. Police met with the family for a counselling conversation, instated various protection procedures and is investigating for insult, threatening, and false accusation. For one thing is certain: The blonde girl from the video certainly does not come from Aying. "The film has apparently been recorded in Bosnia," says Reichl.

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why vigilante justice should not be taken likely. I hope they nail the real perpetrator, but equally I hope that poor German girl's reputation is restored... and that nobody hurts her in the mistaken view that they're doing the world a favour.