“Matilda.” Wendy sighed again. (Despite their current frustration, the two were old friends.) “I completely agree. That’s why we’re here, to protect Jake.”
“But, we can’t stop people from saying crap on the internet,” Jake said bravely. “There wouldn’t be an internet if we did. Shouldn’t we just ignore it?”
The lawyer shrugged. “We’ve ignored it so far, and the dude doesn’t seem to be stopping. Maybe not ignoring it will work better.”
“Well, what would not ignoring it look like?” Jake said. It came out sounding a little harsh, as if he was angry. Well of course he was angry! “I mean, we don’t want to poke the bear, right?”
“If it is a bear. Frankly, a lot of the time, these guys are more of a deer in the headlights than a bear. You shine a bit of a light on them and they run away. Some underachiever might have keyboard courage but if he states or implies a provably false statement of fact, not just an opinion, that’s defamation. They don’t want to get their names published, and they definitely don’t want to be sued. We don’t hear from them again.”
Jake experienced a faint pulse of hope.
“How would you do it?”
“We’d write something official-sounding in the comments.
“And they’ll do that?” Jake said eagerly.
Alessandro shook his head. “Usually they don’t, no. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 says they can’t be held liable for defamation made by third parties. They’re considered a vector for other people’s free speech, technically, so they’re in the clear. But they all have content standards and none of them
“But wait,” said Roland, the publicist. “How can you even suggest that you’re going to sue him if you don’t know who he is?”
“We file a lawsuit against ‘John Doe.’ That gets us subpoena power. We can also serve on the ISPs to try to get the guy’s registrant information, or even better, his IP address. If it’s a shared computer, like a library, we’ll be out of luck, but it can still be useful information. If this is coming from bumfuck nowhere maybe it turns out Jake knows somebody who lives in bumfuck nowhere. Maybe you stole his girlfriend in college or something.”
Jake tried to nod. He had never stolen anyone’s girlfriend in his life.
“And if it’s a work computer, that’s the best news of all, because then we can amend the complaint not just to add the person’s name but also the name of his employer, and that’s quite the powerful lever right there. He’s brave enough when nobody knows it’s him, but if he thinks we’re going to sue his employers, you better believe he’s going to shut up and go away.”
“I certainly would!” said Roland cheerily.
“Well, that’s … encouraging,” Matilda said. “Because it isn’t fair that Jake should have to be dealing with this. Any of us, but Jake especially. And I know it’s been worrying him. He hasn’t said so, but I know.”
For a moment Jake thought he might cry. He shook his head quickly, as if disagreeing, but he didn’t think they were fooled.
“Oh no!” said Wendy. “Jake, we’re on this!”
“Right,” said the attorney. “I’m going to do my thing. That sound you’re about to hear is a deer in the headlights, running away through the woods.”
“Okay,” Jake said with a blatantly false heartiness.
“Honey,” his agent said, “like I said. It’s pathetic, but it’s a point of honor. Anyone who accomplishes anything in this life has someone out there dying to tear him down. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. You are not to think of this as your problem.”
But he had. And it was. And that was the ongoing hell of it.
