Few of us expect to be able to walk into the local post office and stick up an advert calling our neighbours liars, cheats, thieves and sexual deviants. There are laws of libel, after all. What’s more, most of us realise this is not a particularly grown-up way to behave.

Put otherwise intelligent people in front of a computer, however, and something happens. The vast, open digital pastures of the web beckon to the dark side. So, each day, human beings who would never dream of having a blazing argument with a stranger on the train browse the web quite happily spreading egregious nonsense, often about people they don’t know from Adam. Even odder, they don’t appear to realise the consequences.

Well, take note, folks. A fund manager who posted libellous statements about a City firm on the UK Motley Fool financial website found this out to his cost last week when the victim of his accusations received undisclosed but substantial damages in court.

Naturally, this will stir a huge outcry among the neterati about the death of freedom of expression on the net — a reaction to which all rational types everywhere will, I trust, answer: rotfl (and that, for the uninitiated, is web-speak for “rolling on the floor laughing”).

The plain facts of the case are this. The perpetrator used the anonymity of Motley Fool’s bulletin board to spread what he now agrees was a “grave slur”, alleging serious criminal and dishonest wrongdoing. It took a court order to elicit his name from Motley Fool, followed by a lengthy legal battle, at the end of which the libeller, expensively, threw his hands in the air, withdrew the accusations and publicly apologised.

Now, newspapers get involved in questions of anonymity all the time. We use unattributable sources and whistle-blowers, too. But before their accusations work their way into print, they are tested and checked by a reporter, who will then be subjected to lengthy editorial scrutiny, involving lawyers when necessary. When we fail, there’s a panoply of people, from the Press Complaints Commission to the courts, to make sure those errors can prove very costly indeed.

The web has tried to kid itself that it lives in a la-la land where anyone can say anything without paying the consequences. This is wrong, infantile and, frequently, thoroughly shameful. Human beings are built to argue; it’s in our nature. But only cowards put on masks to screech obscenities on the web. This is bullying, not freedom of speech.

It’s also exceedingly stupid. A recent survey of bloggers found that many of them were discovering that they could lose friends and even their jobs because of their online ramblings. Most of those interviewed found it hard to believe that they ran the risk of being sued for what they wrote. And this is the new source of worldwide wisdom? What the Motley Fool case means is that we’re all publishers now — for good and bad. Bloggers and bulletin-board posters can and should be as answerable to the laws of the land as any of us working in the older medium of print. Owning a computer and a spot of free web space entitles nobody to special treatment.

The culprit in last week’s case was found very easily. He was traced to his (now former) employer and even to his specific computer, because Motley Fool was obliged to supply his e-mail address. Whichever way you post your comments, you will in all probability be tracked through your IP address. No sane internet service provider will go to court to protect the identity of a £15-a-month subscriber who is too frightened to show his face. It’s almost enough to make you love lawyers.

david.hewson@sunday-times.co.uk

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