The consensus seems to be that Carreon has less than no case, and may in fact be setting himself up for significant reprisals from the courts... except to the extent that douchey Internet pranksters build a case for him by breaking the law themselves.

Remember, broadly speaking, defamation is just undertaking some action that gives some entity a negative image. Before you go nuts on that, yes, truth is a defense against defamation (ie: it is not defamation if it is true). At which point parody becomes defamation is something of a grey line, which Carreon will try his hardest to use.

If Carreon can paint the image in court that the internet is after him, it would probably help him make his case that the fake twitter account is defamation, not mere parody. After all, context matters.

He's decided to blindly start swinging. While it is certainly possible that he will not hit anything regardless of the community reaction, the minimal probability of success will be such a pain-in-the-ass that it is not worth it.

Of course, the mob's lust for blood achieves nothing but self preservation, and even if the claims are baseless, we're observing each day the consequences of its actions; mostly in the form of Carreon building up his case with ostensibly supportive evidence, and dragging other websites into the fray who had no involvement except to allow people to comment.

But, I dunno, I'm not the greatest advocate of internet vigilantism.

  >  If hundreds of assholes and a dozen criminals support
  > you, then that makes it seem more likely that you are
  > an asshole or a criminal.

I'm not sure why you feel this is the case. They've been careful to redact Carreon's contact info from the document's they've published and they've been saying things like "And to anyone else who is reading this: it goes without saying, but stop harassing Carreon. Be lawful and civil in your interactions with him."

I don't believe at all that that's Inman's intent.

1. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk 2. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk2 3. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter

I thought it went without saying that Twitter handles, above all newly-created ones, were fake unless they had that additional badge.

And the person that created the account was from Sweden.

Carreon is going to have a fun time getting him into court in the US for a civil case.

> "You sir, are a dumbass. I am doing what any sane individual would do."

I saw it linked somewhere, briefly glanced at it, thought "wow, this guy's not fit to be anyone's lawyer", and moved on. I didn't have time or desire to dig into it to find out if it was really him or not. This article has managed to salvage some of that but I doubt everyone who saw the impersonated tweet will learn about the truth.

It's really no different from being labelled "Arrested for XYZ" by the media and then being proven 100% guilt-free. Even if the media redacts the stories or posts new information, the damage is already done in most cases.

In fairness, the real guy's public statements have had the same effect. I'm not sure a parody account can really be said to have affected the guy's reputation, it's already about as tanked as can be.