A few months back, a woman was sued by her landlords after tweeting that the building she lived in was filled with mold. Now, a New York City fashion blogger is being sued by a model she labeled as a “skank.”
Blogger Rosemary Port posted pictures of small-time model Liskula Cohen engaging in activities that many people would consider skanky on her blog “Skanks in NYC”– which actually sounds like a fun read.
Cohen however, didn’t find the material so amusing. She filed suit and through legal wrangling was able to get a court order forcing Google (parent company of blogger.com) to reveal the until-then-anonymous identity of the blog’s author.
Does posting [a blog] give someone the right to call her ‘a psychotic, lying whore’?” asked [Cohen’s lawyer]. “Her business was affected by the anonymous blogger’s site, which had many hits before a client of Liskula brought it to her attention. I know how heartbroken she was.”
Despite Cohen’s victory in prying Port’s name out of Google, the model has told her lawyer she does not want to go ahead with her $3 million defamation suit against Port.
“What this blogger did ought not to be condoned or forgiven. But my client is walking away from it,” the lawyer said. “She’s said, ‘It adds nothing to my life to hurt hers.’ Liskula has offered her forgiveness. But even after she has been forgiven, Port has no interest in redeeming her soul.”
Considering all the smack I talk about celebrities on a regular basis– on this site and on Twitter– I’m a little concerned. Does this mean both you and I– in articles and in the comments on those articles– will no longer be free to label skanky behavior as such without getting sued by said skanks?
If that’s the case, Lindsay Lohan could make enough money off of this site to keep her in patchy tanner and black leggings for the rest of her life.
What happened to free speech?
Lots of celebrities have been called skanky – i.e paris hilton, lindsay lohan, and pretty much every actress in hollywood. i wouldn’t think of that as legal worthy. after all, it’s only the blogger’s opinion.
On the other hand, I do think that many sites should limit their bashing on people. this site can get nasty sometimes, but not as vicious as perez hilton or d-listed.com.
If you are going to label someone in a defamatory way, you just have to make sure it is true. Free speech has to be truthful otherwise it is slander.
So it is true that DarkEmpress fucks farm animals!
Additionally, because celebrities are “public figures,” the defamation laws are different. Where you can be sued just for calling a regular person a “skank,” celebrities have to prove that you called them skanky with legal “malice” (knowledge or reckless disregard for the truth). That’s a higher burden of proof, which is nice – because if you couldn’t call celebrities skanky, the Beet would get pretty boring.
she is acting like it wasn’t a big deal.
but she made a huuuuge deal out of it!
annnooooying.
Anyone notice Diane Sawyer’s introduction? : “Liskula Colon”…defamation at it’s sly best.
If what I read elsewhere is true the blogger didn’t know the model, and most of her other targets, she had apparently seen the model out one night in a club, the model was on a date and with friends, this made the blogger who somehow recognized this woman make her a target. The blogger knows nothing of her personal life and simply made it up as she went along, which ended up hurting the model’s career for no plausible reason, other than maybe jealousy and that isn’t right to do to someone, especially a complete stranger.
Now with a public figure like Lindsay Lohan, she courts the media and behaves in public in a manner than could legitimately be commented on. I think there is a big difference.
lmao no shit Kelly! we’re in a lot of trouble if that’s the case.
What a buncha bullshit, i dont get what the model’s problem is, but i sure as hell think the blogger is being smarter than her by suing google for revealing her identity, and i kind of have a feeling that she may have a chance to win the battle… Getcha thinking, doesn’t it?
what really bothers me is that this is such a frivolous law suit. the model finally found out the blogger and now she’s not going to sue or do anything. (at least that’s what i heard on another website) what’s the point of doing all this if you’re just going to back down?
she just wants attention. very annoying.
*sigh*
It’s about sex and gender.
Look, the model was probably terrified. It was as if some stalking stranger were following her around, and then posting — where she would be sure to see it — that she was a skank and a whore. It’s scary stuff, actually.
But when she (and the courts!) discovered that the blogger was a woman and not a man, the whole thing took on a less threatening timbre. Instead of a man being hateful — which is scary! Intimidating! Misogynistic! — it was a woman being hateful. Just more cattiness, more female-on-female hatred.
Incidentally, the model did recognize her harasser, when the girl’s identity was revealed. They were only acquaintances, but I guess they at least knew each other well enough to have had a falling out. Reportedly, the model said she was just relieved the blogger wasn’t “anybody I respected.” Ouch.
P.S. So basically this — http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2009/08/21/liskula/index.html
You know the old saying….”there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Exactally! The whole thing has only helped her to become more famous. Hell, I didn’t even know who she was until this shit broke out!
But what if it was true could they have done anything about it then? What if you called Lindsay Lohan a lesbian? Can they do anything if the info is true? That would still be consindered defamitory?
http://www.chattertonguegossip.com
unreal.
sad day for the internet.