Defamation

[Marc]

In the USA “ You can take legal action if anonymous Internet posters defame your business on the Internet. However, your right to subpoena a website owner to disclose the identity of the Internet posters will be weighed against the Internet posters' First Amendment right to remain anonymous.”

does a similar situation exist in Ireland?

 

[Sarenco]

Well, we certainly enjoy a constitutional right to freely express our opinions and I know that the High Court refused to order Facebook to disclose the identity of an anonymous posted a couple of years ago.

Why do you ask?

 

[Leo]

Anyone posting true defamation here can't hide behind freedom of speech.

The European courts have started to move towards holding the big players in content hosting with deep pockets liable to some degree in such cases, but anyone looking to pursue such an action would need to be wary of cases such as this.

 

[DirectDevil]

The USA's first amendment rights include a number of topics one of which includes freedom of speech.
A conceptual difficulty for people in Ireland and UK is that those first amendment rights are interpreted very broadly in the USA.
What might be fine by American standards would often not be acceptable here or in the UK at present.

+1 Leo's observation about posters hiding behind freedom of speech arguments.
The Irish Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
However, it is not an absolute right where it comes in to conflict with alternative competing legal rights such as those protected by the tort of defamation.