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

Good News

[jeriqo]

At least, that's a good news for Slashdot :)

Remember the Fine Print ?

"The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way."

-J

Joke meta-post

[Mike Schiraldi]

Please post your "This sucks.. hey, that's just my opinion! Ha! Get it? I'm on a message board, and i'm posting an opinion! Bet nobody else thought of making a joke like that!" messages as replies to this one, so the rest of us can ignore them more easily.

Test case

[tag]

Bill Gates has no technical sense and does nothing but steal other people's ideas.

(C'mon, sue me Bill! I want my name in the news.)