Model Liskula Cohen unmasks mystery blogger

Vogue cover girl who was abused on the internet wins court case forcing Google to hand over details of the woman who posted the insults
Former Vogue cover girl Liskula Cohen has won a landmark legal battle to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” on the internet. In what could be a far-reaching ruling, the court in New York ordered Google to reveal the identity of the mystery author so that Cohen could sue her for defamation.
The case arose in August 2008, when the female blogger – who has not been publicly named – posted five different entries on her blog ‘Skanks of NYC’ hosted by the Google-owned website Blogger.com.
The posts featured pictures of Cohen and an unidentified man in suggestive poses, while the captions described her as the “Skankiest in NYC” and a “psychotic, lying, whoring… skank.” She incorrectly described Cohen, 37, as a “40-something” and said that she “may have been hot 10 years ago”.
Although the blog was taken down Google refused to release the IP address to Cohen, but they have now been forced to reveal her identity to the Canadian model.
The blogger’s lawyer said that the ruling had “potentially damaging implications for free speech on the internet”, although others say it strikes a blow in the battle to stamp out cyberbullying. Announcing her decision New York supreme court judge Joan Madden quoted a ruling by a Virginia court in a similar case that said that anonymous online taunters should be held accountable when their derision goes too far.
The woman who wrote the comments had argued that blogs were a “modern day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting” and posts should not be treated as factual assertions. However Cohen claimed that the words were defamatory and harmful to her career. Her lawyer, Steven Wagner, said they were now planning a defamation suit against the blogger. “We’re not in it to make money,” Wagner told Good Morning America.” “We’re in it because something was done that was wrong.”
Google said it sympathised with the victims of “cyberbullying” but only divulged user information when ordered by a court to do so.
The IP address handed over by Google revealed that the blogger was an acquaintance of Cohen’s but not a friend. “She’s an irrelevant person in my life,” said Cohen. “She’s just somebody that, whenever I would go out to a restaurant, to a party in New York City… she was just that girl that was always there.” 

Courtesy of thefirstpost.co.uk