CA Court: Message Boards Are Opinions, Not Facts

Masem writes: "According to this Newsbytes story, a CA appeals court has issued a ruling that says that typical messages posted to internet message boards can not be considered as libel or slander, as they inheritently are framed as opinions and not as statements of fact. The case stems from rather negative comments posted by defendants about a computer reseller company on the internet; the company sued for libelous comments; lower courts did initially rule for the company, but the appeals court has overturned this. While not every message posted in a public forum is safe, the court's decision seems to convey that unless the message is framed as a form of fact, then any message posted to a public internet forum should be considered as opinion, and thus cannot be considered as a libelous comment."

Comments

New disclaimer:

[rjamestaylor]

"Comments are owned by the Poster."

Change to

"Comments are Opinions owned by the Poster."

Besides, the best defense may just be, "Hey, this is Slashdot -- you were expecting facts?"

;-)

Yeah, but...

[cburley]

isn't this ruling just one court's opinion??

IMHO

[pete-classic]

Note to self: start every comment "IMHO . . ."

/. is still safe

[EccentricAnomaly]

Deep, Deep, down in the sprawling dungeons below Redmond, Washington:

"Yes, Yes, my precious"

"Uhhh... Mr. Gates?"

"WHAT are you doing here!"

"Uhhh... sir, I was sent my the legal team... ya know, Nazgul, Balrog, & son... it seems a court ruling in California put a crimp in our plan to rid oursleves of that vile website, slash-"

"DON'T say that word!! ...well, I guess we need to go to plan B... Send forth the flying monkeys!! Muhahaha!!"

"Uh, sir.. we don't have any flying monkeys... all we have is Dancing Monkey boy..."

"Crap... forget this, I'm just going to stay down here and play with my invisibility ring"