Reports of Kimo's Death Greatly Exaggerated (and Defamatory?)
Erroneous reports of the death of UFC pioneer Kimo Leopoldo spread like wildfire on Tuesday. Numerous MMA and mainstream sites picked up the story, with TMZ.com going so far as to "confirm" the death. Yahoo!'s Kevin Iole provides a great recount of the hoax.
One of the most interesting aspects of this story is the way that technology was involved. The hoax itself began as a single post on an online MMA forum at The Underground. Ever more fascinating, however, is that this may be the first hoax that was debunked over Twitter. Both Iole and CBSSports.com's Denny Burkholder provided frequent tweets as they were investigating the story (as chronicled by Bloody Elbow.)
Now that Kimo has held a press conference to end all doubts, the legal wrangling begins. As Kimo's manager reported to MMAJunkie.com:
You can see the posts from the original people and the original guy who started it. That gentleman was banned (from the site). We're trying to summons his name so we can sue him. We're not taking this lightly.
As it turns out, a summons (subpoena) won't be necessary as the poster's identity has already been revealed by The Smoking Gun who clearly relished the chance to point out the original faulty reporting by its main competitor.
But, if it had been necessary, could Kimo have forced the forum to release the poster's identity? The answer is likely yes. Although this is a very unsettled area of law, one of the leading cases is Dendrite v. Doe, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. Super. App. Div. 2001), which laid out some factors for a judge to consider in deciding whether to enforce a subpoena designed to reveal the identity of an anonymous poster. Although it is a delicate balancing act, if a party can lay out strong evidence that a wrongful act was committed, the poster's identity can generally be revealed. The First Amendment does protect anonymous speech, but it does not protect defamation.
