Discovery related to what people are doing with social media is a rising topic in litigation all over the country. In this case the court gave the bloggers protection. The result may very well be different if a private citizen is the topic of slanderous statements.

SUBPOENA OF GOOGLE FOR NAMES OF BLOGGERS RULED PROPERLY QUASHED
A plaintiff in a defamation suit over anonymous postings on a Google-hosted blog may not obtain the writers' names, a New Jersey appeals court ruled on Wednesday, upholding a trial judge who had quashed a subpoena. Because the statements concerned a public figure and a matter of public concern, the statements were nonactionable “rhetorical hyberbole,” the Appellate Division said. The Ocean County suit was brought by Somerset Development of Lakewood and its president, Ralph Zucker, against a group called “Cleaner Lakewood” and individuals who posted on its blog,cleanerlakewood.blogspot.com.