Message board courage

This has nothing to do with SportsJournalists.com.
But come all you Learned Hands (super geeky legal reference) and all you opinion leaders and tell me your thoughts.
The interwebs have these called message boards, those fan sites where anonymous people, who hide the courage of their convictions behind screen names, post all manner of things. *
Like if the coach won't listen to what we have to say, let's go after his wife and kids, put the pressure on them, maybe that will make the coach leave or hope that a star player gets hurt so the team won't make the tournament or have a bad season so the coach will get fired. **
But what if a public school said enough is enough. Went on the sites, did some digging, found out who the posters were and cancelled their season tickets and gave back their contributions.
Would the school be justified in doing that? Would it be legal? If you were a columnist or beat writer, how would you cover it?

* PS: I noted the irony.
** PPS: I'm lazy as hell, but I clicked on a couple of fan sites at two different schools and easily found posts describing my examples.

 

if that actually is happening, and not a hypothetical, it is a FABULOUS story.

it's so meta.


are you saying that journalists are posting on the fan sites - or people within the school - or just fans? what if an assistant coach, hoping to push out the head coach, went on the fan site and dished? i love this story - i would be all over it.

a comedic twist: what if the CIA or NSA is tipped that the site contains terrorist code, and starts monitoring - and under the Patriot Act of course they would know who is who - and the whole thing blows up into a national security incident

there's a script in this

 

Jay, if you don't stop posting this shit, I'll hunt down your family. I can make things miserable for you. Don't test me.

I mean, uhh...my alma mater yanked someone's season tix for threats he made on a message board. Apparently he was quite unhappy with the ticket office and went into great detail the things he'd like to do to the person to whom he spoke. Dude was real unhappy when the tix were pulled right before an NIT game.

 

Rick Pitino about 3 years ago found out a certain booster was posting insider recruiting info on the boards, so he and an assistant took the guy out to dinner and gave him the name of a fictitious recruit, who made it all over the boards before they let him in on the deal.

 

The thing schools have to be careful of are anti-SLAPP laws. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and a lot of state passed anti-SLAPP laws when corporations started subpoenaing Yahoo, AOL and other stock-board message operators to see who was saying nasty things about them. (Legally speaking, you are not anonymous here -- you are pseudonymous, and Yahoo and the likes will turn over your info in a second.) But what you can do is ask for the name of a specific poster and get that person's identity, if that person is divulging proprietary info (legally speaking) or committing libel.

 

But schools can still nab you for doing something "unbecoming" off school property ... such as drinking (even if you're not charged) ... what's to stop them from kicking you off the team? Or suspending you?

 

Sure, they can kick you off the team. But if a guy says "Coach sucks" on a message board, and a team decides to yank his tickets, then you have a case where the school might get bitten for its actions. What, you're going to revoke tickets for anyone who doesn't worship the ground your coach walks on?

 

No, I think it's completely wrong. They should just ignore it. If it's criminal then it's criminal. If not, so be it. There's too much shit on the internet to worry about.

 

If they really wanted to punish him, they should have forced him to attend the NIT game.

 

rasp - what's your point here?

 

I would so write that screen play

 

Can always count on BYH for a good, legitimate LOL moment.