The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled that online commenters have no constitutional right to falsely attribute nonsatirical postings to someone with a direct connection to the subject matter.
The court found that two John Doe defendants may not appeal a trial court’s interlocutory order requiring an Internet service provider to reveal their identities because they failed to establish that they had a First Amendment right to pose online as a high-level AmerisourceBergen Corp. executive and post commercial information about the company in a website’s comments section.
