Dear IDS opinion commenters

The mantra “It’s just the Internet” has always rung loudly throughout various social networks and online forums. Sitting behind a computer and defaming or bullying a person with the grace of anonymity to protect you used to be an easy thing to do.

However, court justices around the nation are realizing that there is harm in allowing something so infectious to continue without bringing attention to it.

Recently, Marion County Superior Court Judge S.K. Reid started an uprising for the online world, specifically for commenters of blogs and online publications. It was ruled that news media outlets could now be ordered by the court to reveal identifying information about anyone who makes a post in an online forum.

In light of this, we thought that it was only necessary to release an open letter, noting that a majority of our readership comes from the Internet.

As a formality, we want to warn you that the laws of the Internet are changing slowly but surely, and we want you to be careful. The idea that someone could possibly be held accountable for their actions online, whether it be defamation or death threats, is a step in the right direction in our books.

While the perks of anonymity on the Internet are understandable, it can be a dangerous shield to take advantage of.

Now, with that being said, we’d like to take this opportunity to relay a personal message of our own.

We’re not effing scared of you.

Every week, we’re bombarded with comments about how terrible our publication is and how the Opinion staff is a roaring group of gays, liberals and Hitler-like thinkers who wouldn’t know journalism if it hit us on the head.

In return, every week, we sit together and laugh, knowing that however passionate you are about your distaste for our work, you come back to entertain us.

We assume that you’re a glutton for punishment because we don’t plan to change a thing anytime soon.

In the end, we put face and name to every column and editorial you find insensitive to religion, overly homosexual or too liberally minded for your taste. We don’t stand behind pseudonyms, and we are completely unapologetic.

So, excuse the hell out of us for not taking the little men behind the curtain
seriously.
 

The IDS Editorial Board