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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."
Fuckedcompany.com recently received a subpoena from the lawyers of Printcafe.com to cough up "records" of the anonymous posters who made slanderous comments on the site. Some of the comments were directed to the CEO's wife. It seems that Pud (owner of FC) doesn't keep records of the IP addresses of those who frequent the site. Pud said that it was too bad that he already had finished up his book, because they would have received a mention.
There's a big difference between a negative opinion and libel - an opinion is a personal statement meant to negatively impact the object, while libel is a FALSE written statement meant to negatively impact the object.
So while it's true that most of what you find on message boards is bullshit, and should thus be regarded as such without further verification, it can still be libel. All that matters is that it's a lie presented as fact to hurt the object.
However, what the defendants were accused of is TRADE libel - apparently they were saying things like "this stock sucks" clearly within the context of opinion. It could be considered libel within some contexts - but not within that of a message forum. Anyone getting stock tips off one of those is pretty dumb. So in their limited case, it seems they were not commiting libel.
cryptochrome
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Courts are "experts", an expert's opinions have the weight of facts.
This article also states that the SEC wanted it all. Lebed said not without a fight. SEC turned around and said .. ok give us some of it and keep the rest.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Given the page views at vwvortex, i'm sure many have heard of the lawsuit that the Jim Ellis VW dealership in Atlanta, Georgia brought against George Mantis. The dealership sued Mantis recently, alleging that the comments Mantis posted to a VW web forum were libelous/slanderous.
/.). It started out with a few disgruntled customers, and when the dealership tried to snuff the thread by serving papers to both Mantis and VWvortex, it became a giant stink, with international media coverage and even a grassroots legal defense fund. If you look at the timestamps about 7 pages in, you really get a sense of how fast and across how many vectors information can travel.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend you have a read (although the length of the thread at this point easily rivals some of the longest ever seen even on
FYI: The dealership seems to be backtracking now, and supposedly will be in settlement talks this Friday. Hopefully this translates into an even stronger position for Mantis to deal from.
My favorite amongst these is the ZixIt/Visa lawsuit. The CEO of ZixIt said in a con call that 'shareholders should sell if there are no ZixCharge partners by the end of the year'. So the end of the year comes and no partners, coincidentally ZixIt filled a suit against Visa claiming that anonymous posts on the Yahoo message board by a Visa employee had somehow interferred with the business relationships of the company.
The lawsuit is still in progress, only Visa are now subpoenaing the records of the discussion board from Yahoo. The only explanation for this would be if they suspected that ZixIt employees were posting to the board. ZixIt is no longer revenueless, they sold 9,500 seats at something like $25 a seat last quarter, the ZixCharge product has never launched, although this may in part be due to the ZixIt payment site having been hacked a few months back. Kinda hard to promote a secure payments scheme after that eh?
During the arguments over the Paula Jones lawsuit the one that I thought was least good was that the President should not have to spend time answering vexatious lawsuits. While I think that the lawsuit was cooked up by the GOP from start to finis, I don't buy that argument. The Congress and President should have to face the same risks of bogus lawsuits as the rest of us, that might encourage them to do something about the situation.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The content can counter the disclaimer depending on form. For example, if you say "John Doe raped Jane Bloggs", that will be read as an attempt to state facts rather than an opinion. On the other hand, if you say "I believe John Doe raped Jane Bloggs", it's probably a statement of opinion put together with the disclaimer. If you say "Jane Bloggs was raped. In my opinion, the most likely culprit is John Doe", then the disclaimer isn't even necessary.
You need to be careful though - in the United States, opinion is absolutely protected in the same way truth is protected, because "there can be no such thing as a false opinion." Here in New South Wales, opinion has unqualified protection under the Defamation Act 1974 (NSW) s32. But on the Internet you need to make sure that the web site you publish on is in a jurisdiction that has this unqualified protection of opinion, but as long as it's in such a jurisdiction, and you make no attempt to limit the persons who access your web site, a defendant in another jurisdiction won't be able to touch you, even under their local laws (Kostiuk v. Braintech (1999) 171 DLR (4d) 46).
You also need to make sure that when making comment you provide the statement of fact that backs it up. For example, if you say "Joe is a person incompetent to hold a position as a public official", you might be nailed in some places. On the other hand, if you say "Joe cannot read. A person who cannot read is incompetent to hold a position as a public official", the provided it's true that Joe can't read, your OK (in fact in this case you'd be OK most anywhere in the English speaking world).
It's best to make it absolutely clear what part is opinion (or "comment" in defamation terms) and what parts are facts when you're saying something you know somebody might claim is defamatory. This is critical (although less so in the US) - failure to make clear the separation between facts and comments can kill the "fair comment" defence. In some jurisdictions you also have to prove your facts, so it's better to say "I received this email which purports to be from X and says Y" rather than "X sent me this email that says Y".
Of course it's easier just not to say anything bad about other people, but much more boring.
IANALY,TINLA
~~~