Cowards who abuse free speech hiding behind anonymity of internet

IT must have seemed like a good idea at the time, when a video using material from a dashboard camera in a taxi was uploaded to Facebook and YouTube showing a guy jumping out of his car without paying his fare.

Just who was this fare-dodger? If he was identified would it mean that then he would be forced to pay his debt? Would other taxi drivers be on the look-out for this guy so they wouldn’t get stung either? The video quickly went viral, watched by many people who would not know anyone going to and getting out of a taxi to Monkstown in Dublin; they wanted to rubberneck online.

Well apparently somebody thought that they had recognised the offender. So they posted his name on the internet. This so-called whistleblower did so anonymously however, using the name “daithii4u” rather than disclosing his (or her) real identity. And he (or she) was wrong in the identification, either accidentally or deliberately. Fortunately for the person who was named wrongly proof was available that he couldn’t have been in the taxi on the night in question. But this didn’t stop him from being vilified as a fare dodger, as some people (again mostly anonymous people online) questioned the provenance of his airline ticket from Toyko to Dubai that he had for the time he had travelled allegedly instead into Monkstown. Some subjected him to vile abuse, again hiding behind anonymity.