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.'"
This begs the question... To be answered! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:1, Insightful)
No laws were broken (Score:5, Insightful)
The AGs should not be able to do this until they can demonstrate laws were broken. Otherwise they are making up the rules as they go along. Rules that have not been approved by a law making body.
Topix should be able to petition a judge to shut down any talk of remediation until the AGs present formal charges.
Re:Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
And how would that be remotely legal at all?
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
I strongly urge people to read the background information in the links before knee jerking. Here are some pertinent lines:
“In fact, a large percentage of the posts in some Kentucky forums contain explicit, vulgar, obscene and defamatory posts about citizens, including children.”
According to a press release from Conway’s office, the tools provided by Topix.com to remove the abusive posts are ineffective unless consumers agree to pay a $19.99 fee.
Before I go any further, I want to say that I feel strongly that no one has the right to not be offended. There are many in the US who feel as I do, and I believe that higher law, including the Constitution agrees with this, or at least doesn't contradict it. That said, freedom and anarchy are not the same. People also have the right to protect themselves and their children from being defamed or slandered. Charging someone who might not otherwise access your site if they were not being slandered seems quite ridiculous to me.
Re:No laws were broken (Score:4, Insightful)
AGs shouldn't be able to do anything at all. The California attorney general has jurisdiction. The rest of the world (except the federal government) has no say whatsoever.
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Today's reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Today if you are a white male anyone can pretty much say whatever they want about you without it being considered actionable. There is libel and slander, but it is difficult to prove actual malice. Without that it is going to be a tough fight in court to get anywhere with libel or slander.
However, if you are in what is considered to be a protected group, such as women, African-Americans or other groups like this, it can easily be considered a violation of federal law to post comments which are derogatory without even getting into libel or slander. This is a side effect of "hate speech" laws that have come about.
Of course we are all familiar with the idea that if a member of a protected class is murdered and the State does not convict anyone the accused can be tried again (and again and again until convicted) under federal civil rights laws. The idea of double jeopardy has fallen by the wayside when it comes to protected groups.
I would say a web site that charges a fee to remove comments from a forum about a protected group is just asking for trouble on a federal level. Sooner or later they are going to run into someone that gets the attention of a big-name bigmouth like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson Sr. I wouldn't think you would have to go very far to find someone like Barney Franks that could exert some influence on behalf of a gay person being charged a fee to remove some anti-gay comment.
For "unsupervised" forums there may be some cover, but I would imagine it is just a matter of time before this is noticed. Sure, a Slashdot comment may be modded down. But if a unmoderated forum allows comments to stick around and be visible it better be a white male only forum because anything else can get you into serious trouble.
We all have to watch out for the civil rights of protected groups or else they will suffer grevious harm. Right?
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
They taught me not to follow "unlawful orders" when I was in the military.
Following orders is a very bad excuse for doing something you know is wrong.
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The answer is already here. (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>You've forgotten that goods
Good grief. You didn't understand a single word I wrote. I wasn't talking about the good. I was talking about the company. The man who owns Vermont Teddy Bears is subject to VT and US regulation, but not California or any of the other states. Those governments haze zero jurisdiction over non-citizens.
As for other brilliant ideas, like New York State wanting me to collect taxes from my ebay buyers and file a tax return, they can rot in hell. I owe zero allegiance to that government, nor do I have any voice speaking for me in its legislature.
Re:No laws were broken (Score:3, Insightful)
Being visible to is one thing. What if he starts offering his site in French as well? What if - prior to the adoption of the Euro - he offered his services available by payment in French Francs? Can you still argue that It's just a site in the UK that is only subject to UK legislation?
Yes.
If the owner of the site decided to start accepting Chinese currency and offering his site in Chinese, he would still not be subject to Chinese laws. There's going to be an arbitrary line drawn either way, and we cannot have a chaotic mishmash where nobody is sure what jurisdiction applies to a website.
Re:No laws were broken (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Can you still argue that It's just a site in the UK that is only subject to UK legislation?
No British citizen who lives on British soil should ever feel the cold steel of a French guillotine, especially if he's never left the British Isles. Furthermore, it is not logical for a Englishman to be answerable to a Fucking Legislature where he has no voice. Can you imagine that chaos that would cause?
"We the French assembly have determined that all web owners that displayed nudity, even prior to passage of this law, shall spend 10 years in jail." You'd end-up deporting British web owners to France where they would be jailed by a foreign government.
Yeah I know I exaggerated, but it seems with some people you have to hit them with a hammer to make them understand the implications of subjecting citizens to foreign Governments where they have Zero representation and Zero voice. Ya know, I don't feel like having my head chopped off just because an Iranian purchased an Ebay hard drive from me that showed women in bikinis.
Re:Today's reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah yes. It is terrible to be a white man in the US. Let me give you a clue: you have no idea what it is like to be a woman, a black person, or a Muslim. Stop comparing your plight to theirs, it makes you look ridiculous. Furthermore, while a gay person might have Barney Franks to go to, you, as a white male, can go to 81% of the Senate and 76% of the House to find someone white. An only slightly smaller fraction of that would be white and male. So no, you're not being prosecuted or mistreated. You're still part of the group in power.
Of course we are all familiar with the idea that if a member of a protected class is murdered and the State does not convict anyone the accused can be tried again (and again and again until convicted) under federal civil rights laws.
Remember OJ? Clearly, not. Civil rights apply to everyone. Thankfully.
Let me repeat that for you: as a white male, you are the power group. Not the persecuted group. The persecution you feel is the same as that of Christians in the US: completely imaginary, and only based on the fact that your power has decreased from its zenith during the last few hundred years.
Re:No laws were broken (Score:1, Insightful)
Things aren't so simple as you make it seem. You may even be correct in your examples (I'm not familiar enough with the laws of the UK or EU to comment) but they're still over-simplified.
The reality is, each "body" makes up its own rules regarding jurisdiction. If I were the dictator of Dhalkaville, I could pass a law stating that anybody anywhere in the world who wears a blue shirt should be executed.
The practical effects? Few, because nobody is going to extradite you to me for wearing a blue shirt. However if you stepped foot off an airplane in my country wearing a blue shirt, there's nothing at all stopping me from arresting you, declaring you guilty (hey, it's my country so I get to determine the rules for trial as well) and executing you. At that point if they really want to stop me, they're declaring war.
Now obviously this is a ridiculous and wholly contrived example, but it applies equally to more mundane things. It's how, for example, Google executes could be indicted it Italy under Italian laws despite being US citizens and a US company. Practical effect? Little. Effect if they happen to visit Italy? Could be large.
The situations are further complicated by various treaties. The entire EU is essentially one big treaty, for example. They may have some sort of law stating that any indictment in one member nation is binding in other member nations; essentially a huge, multi-national agreed-upon extradition framework. (Or, hell, they may not. Like I said, I don't know.) If Dhalkaville happens to be friends with Commodoreland that blue shirt decree is suddenly twice as bad.
Re:Today's reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Subject (Score:2, Insightful)
"Taking complaints from your citizenry and turning them into political capital is simply too good an opportunity for these guys to pass up."
On the other hand, a company doing shitty things that piss off consumers is a good way to get attention from attorneys general.
Re:Today's reality (Score:4, Insightful)
White Entertainment Television
We had it. It was called PAX.
Re:No laws were broken (Score:1, Insightful)
No British citizen who lives on British soil should ever feel the cold steel of a French guillotine, especially if he's never left the British Isles.
You're [wikipedia.org] so [bbc.co.uk] right [slashdot.org].
Though I sympathise, somehow I'm not convinced your (noble) views match current reality.