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Blog Faces Lawsuit Over Reader Comments
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:47 AM
from the this-will-get-worse-before-it-gets-better dept.
from the this-will-get-worse-before-it-gets-better dept.
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "In a legal case being watched closely by bloggers, an Internet company has sued the owner of a blog for comments posted to his site by readers, the Wall Street Journal Online reports. Traffic-Power.com, which sells tools for boosting Web traffic, sued Aaron Wall, age 25, over statements posted in the comments section of Wall's search-engine-optimization blog, SEOBook.com. (Wall also has posted about the case.) 'Legal analysts said the case falls into somewhat murky legal territory, but that Mr. Wall may have some protection from liability under federal law,' WSJ.com says. 'Courts generally have held that the operators of computer message boards and mailing lists cannot be held liable for statements posted by other people. Blogs might be viewed in a similar light, they said.' However, Daniel Perry, a lawyer who has followed the case, says that Wall's case is complicated by his own negative comments about Traffic-Power, which could be seen as a competitor to his site. 'To be candid, he sort of moved into this moving propeller,' Perry said. 'The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people.'"
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Power of the pulpit (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, that's one of the greatest strengths of the internet. True freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech comes with responsibility. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should you be allowed to go around staring negative rumours about your business competitors? How would you like your boss to lie to a future employer that you got fired for drug abuse or for having kiddie porn?
People want rights but never seem to understand that responsibilities are just as important for the functioning of society.
One of the great problems with the Internet currently is that there are so many anonymous cowards, who troll, spam and lie. There is very little consequence to such actions so people aren't inhibited.
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Psssst! (Score:5, Funny)
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No, it doesn't (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like the idea here is that you should have freedom of speech if you're criticizing the government, but not if you're criticizing a business.
Considering the large number of people I run across who espouse the belief the government should have as little power as possible and businesses should take up any important functions instead, this would seem in the long run to maybe lead to not having any meaningful free speech at all.
"Libel" doesn't really have anything to do with it. Did you read the article? You know, the one this comments section is supposedly talking about? The lawsuit doesn't even specify exactly which comments that seobook.com is being sued for, and the claims which were likely to have sparked the lawsuit seem to have been corroborated by other sources. In this light it seems likely that the comments prompting the lawsuit at worst are legitimate criticisms of this trafficpower company, and at best are incorrect but honestly meant by the people who posted them.
Ever heard the term "chilling effects"? The problem is we have to err on either one side or the other. Either we are too cautious with freedom of speech and allow bad information to flourish, or we are too strict and dissuade people from exercising their freedom. There isn't a middle ground. The thing is though that if we err on the side of caution, nothing is hurt. People can make up their own minds and decide not to trust an "anonymous coward" on the internet unless what they say can be corroborated. However if we err on the other side, and wind up silencing people because they cannot risk the consequences of having spoken, then there is no way to repair this. Those comments are lost forever.
There is very little consequence to such actions so people aren't inhibited.
Ah yes, this horrible environment in which there are no negative consequences for expressing oneself... how will civilization survive.
Parent
Re:Freedom of speech comes with responsibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a problem, but merely a behavior.
The problem is (and long has been) the degree to which we've tended to believe the printed word, no matter the source. The Internet's gradually improving that situation.
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Re:Freedom of speech comes with responsibility. (Score:5, Interesting)
To use your own logic, there are well-traveled avenues that you could use to prevent your boss from lying about you. They are libel and slander laws, and if it happens with company compliance, you could set yourself up to never work again.
This guy is being served with a murky lawsuit, and the plantiff's counsel offered to drop the whole thing if he removed every bit of referring content to their company. If their counsel really did their homework, they would have documented each and every infraction on his site, included it in the suit, and asked for specific remedies (whether it be money, removal of content, etc.) Upon receiving it, he could get useful legal counsel, and either fight it or comply. Instead, they're trying to intimidate him into silence.
That would be like Microsoft suing slashdot over critical posts and offering to drop the whole thing if every reference to MS was removed from this site.
Maybe before you try the Uncle Ben defense (With great power comes great responsibility) you should RTFConstitution.
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Re:Power of the pulpit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's freedom from the consequences of your speech that is being debated.
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Re:Power of the pulpit (Score:5, Interesting)
"The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people."
You mean, if I were to say this:
"Daniel Perry is a two-bit fucktard who plainly doesn't understand what the Internet is all about. He spreads lies, deceit, and only wants to sue people for their hard-earned money while he accepts fat checks from his clients. What a worm, that guy."
That would mean Slashdot might be held liable in a lawsuit, amiright?
Also, if you're not allowed to make negative comments about people on the Internet, then about 98% of all blogs ever written would be in violation of the law.
Parent
hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
This guy has obviously never been to
Libel or 1st Amendment? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dangerous Territory (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dangerous Territory (Score:4, Funny)
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I wondered this as I blasted a business... (Score:5, Insightful)
I went on the site scionlife.com and in their "Review Dealers" section ripped Romano Scion of Syracuse, NY. I told how they had done me wrong and advised others to never shop there.
Is ScionLife liable? Am I? Is Slashdot liable now that I've put it up here?
And finally, if someone spray paints a swastica on my garage door while I'm out of town and unable to remove it, am I liable for a hate crime?
Re:I wondered this as I blasted a business... (Score:5, Insightful)
The lawsuit isn't bad because the website is going to get convicted it's because if these suits are going to continue popping up websites will not be allowed to let comments be posted due to the cost of proving themselves innocent.
Being a litigious society sucks because of the amount of time and money wasted on lawyers. And that's really 99% of the reason why we should care.
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For something to be libel (Score:5, Informative)
1) The statements you make must be false statements. Truth is the ultimate defence against a libel suit. No matter how bad something is that you say, if it's true, it's not libel.
2) You had to know the statements were false. If you believed you were making true statements, that is also a defence against libel. Of course that's a little harder to prove, gets in to he-said, she-said to try and prove if you knew or not.
3) The statements had to be made with the intent to cause harm. If they were made as a joke, it's not libel. Again, gets in to an argument of if you really intended to cause harm.
So, if your statements are true, and provably so, you are fine. If not it gets a little more unclear.
Now please note, they could still sue you, even if their suit had no merit. That shit happens ALL the time. Even if everything you said was true you could still be sued. Doesn't mean you'd be liable for anything if you defended yourself, but you'd still have to defend yourself.
Parent
How dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
but apparently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Horse pucky (Score:5, Insightful)
Horse pucky. If you aren't free to share your opinion, then this isn't the United States I thought I lived in. More and more, it seems like the freedom of speech is directly related to how much money you have.
There is a huge difference between blatently attempting to undermine and destroy a reputation, and simply expressing your opinion (negative or otherwise). The ability to express one's opinion, even if said opinion is extremely negative, should be protected speech.
The people filing this lawsuit are nothing more than schoolyard bullies.
Re:Horse pucky (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless they're right. In which case they're making sure that another party isn't abusing the first amendment and BSing while presenting nonsense as fact. It could be done by either party, for any reason, and the only issue is whether or not the person posting his comments, or allowing the other comments to stay up on his web site, are truthful.
The truth may indeed be extremely negative, but who cares, as long as it's the truth. But a lot of people post demonstrable lies in blogs, hoping that the search engines will pick up on it, etc. The person being lied about should have recourse, whether large or small.
In this case, how have you made your determination about the truthfullness (and thus, non-libelous) nature of the web content in question? I didn't see enough to go on, so you must know more.
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WTF (Score:5, Funny)
I beg to differ [wikipedia.org].
Hurting someone else's feelings is my spaghetti-god-given right.
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't?
Last I heard people were free to express an opinion, even one that is "wrong".
Well sure, spreading lies and actively defacing or hurting an individual should be frowned upon, but bad-mouthing a company or a competitor you don't like? Hello? Slashdot anyone? Yes, the editors get involved in this too. Slashdot is as much of a bash fest as it is a news and informative opinion medium.
If merely bad mouthing a company that you don't like is not legal, Slashdot would have been sued out of existance long ago! Half the comments made about companies we don't like here are in fact complete nonsense and out-right lies.
If cases like this hold up, places like Slashdot don't have much of a future. As much as I hate the large amount of truly idiodic comments that cross this site, I don't want to see it taken down by corporate lawyers and I sure as hell don't want to feel like every word I say, interpreted in any number of ways by any number of people might suddenly land me in jail.
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
(Sorry, I've always wanted to say that. Actually, most of what I know about IP was learned while helping my SO study for her IP class in her MBA program)
Let me get the facts straight, as the article seemed a little light on details. Some guy, in the US, posts factual information or personal opinion on his weblog, and allows others to do so as well. These include unkind words about a company who makes a product or service which may compete with a product or service with which the author is financially involved. (try and parse that one)
A Trade Secret, traditionally, is something so necessary to your core business and so valuable that you believe that keeping it a secret is more likely to make you money than patenting it, or it is unpatentable. Telling the world a trade secret is only unlawful if you are contractually bound not to tell, or if you came by the information through theft or other nefarious means. Once a trade secret is no longer secret, you have no protection (hence the incentive for patenting and licensing).
So, unless this guy stole the information, or is under a nondisclosure agreement, this looks an awful lot like free speech. The others who posted in his site may have written unkind things as well, but the comments are (I assume) clearly delineated as visitor comments, and not the writings of the author. I think you can go pretty far toward slander without getting into trouble that way.
I'm wondering why this is even an issue, unless its just punishement through lawyer fees, regardelss of the outcome.
The Law is Not So "Murky" Here: See CDA sec. 230 (Score:5, Informative)
The Communications Decency Act, sec. 230(c)(1) says,
And, in sect. 230 (f)(3),Why a blog with comments would be treated differently from, say, a BBS or a chat room escapes me. And I teach this stuff for a living. So much for the defamation claims.The trade secret claim is a little harder. It's probably the case that Congress didn't have trade secrets in mind when it wrote sec. 230. On the other hand, if you read the full text [findlaw.com] of sec. 230 you will see that Congress intended fairly broad protection; in sec. 230(f)(3) it certainly wrote in very broad terms. In law there are few certainties until after a court rules, but I think the balance here points towards a finding of non-liability both on CDA grounds and traditional trade secret grounds (where innocent receivers of information, and especially journalists who receive information, are not usually liable).
Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Number one tool for boosting web traffic: publicity. Hence, lawsuit.
Not the nicest SEO company (Score:5, Informative)
Reminds me a bit of a certan guy at SCO...