The Story of Dealing With 33 Attorneys General 172
microbee writes "Early this year, Topix, a popular community forum, faced investigation from 33 state Attorneys General for the practice of charging a fee for 'expedited review' of content that was flagged as inappropriate. The case was settled on August 9th, with Topix dropping the fees in question. Now TechCrunch is running an article by Topix CEO Chris Tolles, in which he talks about his experiences dealing with so many Attorneys General. Quoting: 'This is going to happen more — The States' Attorneys General are the place that complaints about your company will probably end up. This is especially true if you host a social or community based site where people can post things that others may dislike. And, there's no downside to attacking a company based in California for these guys (MySpace, Facebook, Craigslist have all been targets in the past couple of years). Taking complaints from your citizenry and turning them into political capital is simply too good an opportunity for these guys to pass up.'"
Re:Irony (Score:1, Informative)
Law enforcement shifting its focus to revenue collection. Most infamous are so-called "DUI" checkpoints in which citizens are searched throuroughly and ticketted for every little infraction. There was a story in the local reader about how somebody had their vehicle impounded ($300 bucks right off the bat here) because they didn't have updated insurance paperwork for their valid policy.
And it's only going to get worse.
Re:Irony (Score:5, Informative)
This ain't about free speech, this is a method of extortion they took down.
"Oh, somebody posted something nasty about you. Pay $20 to take it down." Like that isn't ripe for abuse by the site admins. "Hmm, BillG1020 lives in a wealthy neighbourhood. Clickety-clickety. Let's see how long he takes."
It's a real pity the AG's didn't go further and block removal of comments at all. That's why Slashdot works so well, nasty crud gets modded down most times, but it's still there for the dirty minded buggers to read if they want. You're free to say it and I'm free to ignore it.
The answer is already here. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Irony (Score:4, Informative)
Dunno about the legality of it, but not being able to remove comments would prevent a slippery slope of editing the public record.
All forums but one I belong to don't allow originators or commentators to remove posts because they would break the flow of the conversation. Admittedly that's about seventeen of however many millions there are.
Consider a meat-space equivalent. Some white guy shouts something nasty at a crowd of blacks in Detroit. The news crews have filmed the incident from the start to the riot where the hospital is burned to the ground. Now the white guy goes and asks the film crews to cut his words out so that it looks like he was just standing there when the crowd went wild by itself.
Re:No laws were broken (Score:4, Informative)
Well then I guess they only provide services to people in the state of california. In reality they don't, you know it, I know it, they knew it. It's the same reason why FB has drawn the ire of both the german and canadian governments. Because the internet removes borders, and as such they become subject to the laws of other places.
In defense of Topix... (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly enough, it did work. I was able to flag the post over the course of a couple of days, and it was eventually removed. So don't say that they *never* removed posts based on the free system. They did at least once.
Re:The answer is already here. (Score:4, Informative)
Under current laws internet companies are treated the same as mail-order companies -
They are subject to the laws of whatever state they reside (say: Vermont) plus the central, general government if their goods (say teddy bears) cross state lines. (If they don't cross lines, then only Maine has authority.) In my example the business would not be subject to foreign government outside of Vermont, just the same way a Polish business is not subject to the governments of Germany or France or other EU states.
And there's a good reason for that: No seller or citizen (like me) should be subject to a government where he has no representation.
Re:Today's reality (Score:3, Informative)
This is a side effect of "hate speech" laws that have come about.
In the US, there is no hate speech laws, the 1st amendment of the US constitution broadly prohibits regulation of the content of speech.
It's called "hate crime" not "hate speech". And yes something you say can be counted as a "hate crime".
"The 1964 Federal Civil Rights Law, 18 U.S.C. 245(b)(2), permits federal prosecution of anyone who "willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin" [1] because of the victim's attempt to engage in one of six types of federally protected activities, such as attending school, patronizing a public place/facility, applying for employment, acting as a juror in a state court or voting."
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, enacted in 28 U.S.C. 994 note Sec. 280003, requires the United States Sentencing Commission to increase the penalties for hate crimes committed on the basis of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or gender of any person. In 1995, the Sentencing Commission implemented these guidelines, which only apply to federal crimes.
On October 28, 2009 President Obama, signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010), which expanded existing United States federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, and which dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity.
So if you combine all these, you end up with intimidation being a severely punishable offence if the person is a minority. Since 'intimidation' is extremely vague the law can punish you for libel or slander if it is 'intimidating' in nature. Bye freedom of speech.
This doesn't even include state laws
Re:first post (Score:5, Informative)
"Attorneys General" is correct. This is because English is f'd up.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/compounds.htm [commnet.edu]
Re:Irony (Score:3, Informative)
Oh and he used campaign money to rent hotel rooms for his hookups.
Unless you were there, I don't see how you can make that claim:
" the prosecutors found no evidence that Mr. Spitzer had used public money or campaign funds to pay for his encounters with prostitutes, he said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/nyregion/07spitzer.html?_r=1&hp [nytimes.com]
And it's interesting how you left out all the good things he did in his career, not the least of which was taking on the Gambino crime family.
http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2002/jun/jun04a_02.html [ny.gov]
Does anyone REALLY care that he got down with some hookers? Are we really still so prude?
Re:first post (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's because we're referring to 33 attorneys, not 33 generals. You modify the basic noun, not the modifiers. English would be more f'd up if you didn't.
Imagine if this was correct english:
"I'm a rebel without a cause. You're a rebel without a cause too. We're rebel without a causes!"