The topic I am about to discuss is a very sensitive one to me. It involves cruel, rude, or even merely imperceptive people who feel that it is their responsibility to share their opinions with the rest of the world. These people just cannot keep their thoughts to themselves. So incensed or vindictive are they that they believe it is their right and/or duty to ruin or attack another's reputation without any evidence to stand upon besides their word.

These self-appointed prosecutors are less interested in truth than they are in the infliction of damage and angry breast beating. Unfortunately, they now have the new weapons of modern information technology. Sure, there are laws to protect innocent people from these spiteful predators, but there are always loopholes in laws. No matter what, someone is going to get hurt. What is the crime? Slander. Libel. Defamation of character.

Defamation is the issuance of a false statement about a particular individual or a group of individuals that brings harm to those concerned. Slander is defamation issued through transitory means - usually the spoken word. Libel is defamation via the written word. In cases of defamation, "published" simply means that the false information is presented as fact to a third party.

The loopholes are that the plaintiff (victim of defamation) must be able to prove the statement both false and directly devastating to their community standing, business, or personal wellbeing. The defendant (defamer) can easily claim that he or she was only stating an express opinion and not presenting fact, that the plaintiff suffered negligible damage as a result of the statement, that he or she was only the "messenger" and not the author, or that he or she was acting with the best interest of the community in mind.

As you can see, the personal bias of the court officials is often the deciding factor in any case of defamation when little evidence is available.

That modern weapon I mentioned above, not surprisingly, is the Internet. Recently my family was libeled online via an Internet blog (a public online diary). (The people involved and issue in question will both remain unmentioned.) Several of my family members were scathingly and unfairly insulted. Having read a small portion of the posted material, I recognize which incidents the author was citing as the cause of his/her anger. However, what I cannot understand is how the author inferred these terrible ideas about my family from the events that occurred.

That's all it takes, someone misinterpreting - accidentally, purposefully, or because of an already existing bias - an innocent and unassuming (even if thoughtless) action (or exaggerating a less than friendly one). This happens all the time in high school. A couple suffers a bad break up and suddenly lurid and angry rants about the boyfriend show up all over the girlfriend's blog and vice versa. It doesn't even need to be that personal. Think of all the absolute garbage people say about celebrities - entire magazines are made to encompass it! And we only know what's said about them because they are national celebrities.

4chan is a website that I refuse to visit. As my friends described it, "It is the ultimate soul-sucking black hole of the Internet." In other words, the Internet headquarters for digitized libel and inappropriate material.

I simply cannot stand people who take it upon themselves to defame people they barely know anything about! The worst thing is that almost every single one of those people is going to get away with it because just hurting someone's feelings isn't against the law. The one weapon that we have against them is not stooping to their level. By all means, read what they write about you if you are so inclined, but do not try and defend yourself against online blog attacks. The only thing that that will result in is a very public pissing match that will remain available to anyone with Internet access for the next several months.

As my dad says, "Don't wrestle in the mud with pigs. You'll both get dirty - but the pig likes it."

Kyra-lin Hom may be reached at kl_hom@yahoo.com