Amanda Todd. Steubenville’s Jane Doe. Now, Rehtaeh Parsons.

These teenage girls’ stories of sexual assault and social torment each involve uniquely awful elements.

But one detail seems to be a permanent fixture of the digital-legal landscape when a case of alleged rape begins rocketing across social media: the appearance of the online collective Anonymous and its offshoots. Always, they are there to harangue institutions they believe have failed in their duties and seek justice, whatever that may be.

“Expect us,” the Anonymous tag line, is increasingly believable.

And in the case of Parsons, the 17-year-old Cole Harbour, N.S., teenager who was allegedly raped by four boys and whose suicide last week has caused an uproar, this week may have marked a new direction for the famously chameleonic Anonymous.

After threatening to release the names of boys they claim assaulted Parsons, the group at least temporarily reconsidered.

“This one seems like a real turning point,” though “it may be too early to tell,” says Gabriella Coleman, a McGill University professor who is writing a book on Anonymous. “They’re being very careful about their rhetoric and tactics.”

That may not be enough to satisfy some worried at how web users are responding to the case.

“You have the court of public opinion, and then you have the court of law,” says Nova Scotia RCMP and Halifax police spokesperson Scott MacRae, who is handling media calls related to the Parsons case.

“The court of law is based on a lot of due process, a lot of Charter rights,” he says. “The court of public opinion has no rules. When you don’t have any rules to govern or direct information, it leads to the possibility of misinformation.”

The difficulty in discussing Anonymous is that anyone can borrow the group’s name. In the Parsons case, it’s not even clear whether everyone flying the Anonymous banner is working together.

On Thursday night, a statement signed by Anonymous was posted online: they knew the names of two boys who had raped Parsons, but had decided not to publish them. They wanted to honour the family’s wishes. But they also seemed to defer to due process.

“We are aware that new evidence may have possibly been presented to the RCMP. If this is true, nothing should interfere with that investigation. We would much prefer to see someone in jail than their only punishment to be shame. That would not be justice,” the statement read. It called for a protest Sunday in front of Halifax police headquarters.

It also admonished others circulating names, saying some of them were not connected to the rape.

“All the good you think you are doing will be displaced by the harm you will cause to the innocent young men you have wrongly named.”

But another post released Friday morning, also signed by Anonymous, gave a muddier promise:

“We do not seek vigilante justice. If those who we believe are guilty are exonerated in a court of law, Anonymous will disappear from Nova Scotia. If we decide to release the names, a deadline will be declared at least one week in advance.”

And just to complicate things even further, another group calling itself Anonymous of Halifax posted a statement Friday saying no one had consulted them about the Sunday protest and that they were concerned violence would break out.

“We pride ourselves on our positive relationship with the Halifax Regional Police,” that statement said.

“Anonymous needs to be seen as something that’s really dynamic and flexible,” explains Coleman.

In Amanda Todd’s case, the group was criticized for releasing the name and address of the man it claimed was the sexual predator who harassed Todd before her suicide. The British Columbia RCMP said that allegation was “unfounded,” though stopped short of saying Anonymous had named the wrong man.

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Coleman called this week’s decision by Anonymous to withhold names “interesting.”

“I think there’s ways in which they definitely want the public’s support, so they’ll change tactics. . . in order to get that.”

Still, they “resist institutionalization,” she says, and “they’re totally unpredictable, compared to any other organizations.”

The RCMP’s MacRae says any open, transparent discussion of issues involved in the case is welcome. “What concerns police on the social media side is vigilantism — taking action into your own hands. That’s not constructive.”

Whatever the group ends up doing, “They are this feature, and I don’t think they’re going to go away,” says Coleman.

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