Reddit Commenter's Fight for Anonynmity Is a Win for Free Speech and Fair Use

This is a very strange verdict.  Since when was Reddit a U.S. government instrumentality?  Unless it is, the 1st Amendment does not apply to it.  And since when did the first amendment work to conceal facts anyway?  It frees up speech. Only privacy legislation could have had the desired effect here

A fight over unmasking an anonymous Reddit commenter has turned into a significant win for online speech and fair use. A federal court has affirmed the right to share copyrighted material for criticism and commentary, and shot down arguments that Internet users from outside the United States can’t ever rely on First Amendment protections for anonymous speech.

EFF represents the Reddit commenter, who uses the name “Darkspilver.” A lifelong member of the Jehovah’s Witness community, Darkspilver shared comments and concerns about the Jehovah’s Witness organization via one of Reddit’s online discussion groups. Darkspilver’s posts included a copy of an advertisement asking for donations that appeared on the back of a Watch Tower magazine, as well as a chart they edited and reformatted to show the kinds of data that the Jehovah’s Witness organization collects and processes.

Earlier this year, Watch Tower subpoenaed Reddit for information on Darkspilver as part of a potential copyright lawsuit. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, a group that publishes doctrines for Jehovah’s Witnesses, claimed that Darkspilver’s posts infringed their copyright, and that they needed Darkspilver’s identity to pursue legal action.

EFF filed a motion to quash the subpoena, explaining that Watch Tower’s copyright claims were absurd, and that Darkspilver had deep concerns that disclosure of their identity would cause them to be disfellowshipped by their community. Accordingly, Watch Tower’s subpoena could not pass the well-established “Doe” test, which allows a party to use the courts to pierce anonymity only where they can show that their claims are valid and also that the balance of harms favors disclosure. The Doe test is designed to balance the constitutional right to share and access information anonymously with the right to seek redress for legitimate complaints.

In a hearing earlier this month, Watch Tower argued that they met the requirements of the Doe test, claiming that their copyright was infringed and also that the Doe test did not apply because Darkspilver is not a U.S. resident. On Friday, May 17, Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim rejected the latter argument, holding that the First Amendment can apply even if a Doe is not in the U.S. The court noted that because Darkspilver’s speech was on a U.S. company’s platform and has a U.S. audience, silencing them would have unavoidable domestic ripple effects. As Judge Kim explained, “The subpoena here was issued by a court in the United States, on behalf of a United States company (Watch Tower) and was directed against another United States company (Reddit). Moreover, the First Amendment protects the audience as well as the speaker.”

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