Richmond bawl

Richmond Mall - a shopping facility in Richmond, Kentucky - became the target of ridicule when it made a young woman leave because she wore a short dress.

Regardless of whether the mall had a legal right to escort this customer off the premises because of her dress, Richmond Mall looks mighty idiotic. A short dress is no more offensive than anything else you might see at a mall. (This dress was no more revealing than what's widely seen all over the country on a daily basis.) If someone is kicked out of a mall for a short dress, what's next? Blacking out all the cuss words in books at the bookstore with a marker? (The mall is especially hypocritical because the "offensive" dress was purchased at this mall!)

The story gets weirder. The Internet can be a seething cauldron of right-wing batshittery, and there's some folks on the 'Net who just can't accept it when a mall ends up looking stupid. So they get desperate. And they spread lies.

We've probably all seen these types. Any newspaper website that allows public comments on articles inevitably finds its comment section filled with right-wing harangues - claiming this and claiming that, with no proof. They bawl, they cry, they scream, they whine.

When the Richmond Register reported on the mall episode, some right-wing galoot posted a comment claiming that the customer who was escorted from the mall had exposed herself to children and adults who were shopping there. Although I don't know any of the people involved in the incident, this certainly sounds to me like a baseless allegation.

Baseless, almost certainly. But it's exactly the type of bald-faced lie wingnuts spread about people on the 'Net.

Many victims of false Internet accusations would just feel browbeaten into not doing anything about it - while their reputation agonizingly gets destroyed. But the young woman in this case isn't putting up with this shit. She's suing for defamation.

The Richmond Register had deleted the comments and banned the user who posted them. Now the company that manages the Register's comment forums is trying to find the poster's identity.

And I hope they do find it. Spreading made-up crap about people is known as defamation, and one can be held liable in a civil suit for it.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/middleblue1/story.aspx?content_id=76a0f345-ba25-40d4-bef0-a9c3cdc2560b)