Blog Faces Lawsuit Over Reader Comments

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.'"

Comments

Freedom of speech comes with responsibility.

[the_raptor]

Seriously when did people get this idea that you should be able to say whatever you want and never have any consequences? All freedom of speech means is that the Government won't try to stop your (should be political) speech. It doesn't mean you can libel and slander people anonymously consequence free.

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.

Re:Freedom of speech comes with responsibility.

[avi33]

Mr. Wall, 25 years old, who runs an Internet marketing business from his home, said the suit "is so vague in nature that it's hard to know what I'm being sued for."

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.

Re:Freedom of speech comes with responsibility.

[King_TJ]

Well, the problem *then* becomes, how do you *know* "nobody is listening"?

It's entirely possible (and has already happened) that someone creates a "blog" site intended to serve as sort of an electronic version of a personal diary, accessible anyplace they have Internet access, and mainly intended for a few friends or family members to use if they care to join in. But someone stumbles onto it, discovers what they view as an interesting conversation about something of significance - and starts directing heavy traffic to it. All of a sudden, this person's formerly "unknown" comments have big influence.

Therefore, you have to consider the *potential audience* for your words before you type them - not your current actual audience. When you host a web site on the Internet, the *potential* is always quite large.

If you want to write comments that truly aren't even intended to reach an audience beyond a few selected people, you'd password protect it.

Re:Power of the pulpit

[Eil]

"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.

Editorial control

[Per Abrahamsen]

I believe part of the answer lies in editorial control. If you delete comments on your blog, you may be conisderet an editor rather than a common carrier, and become responsible for the content.

Another case is if you refuse to remove illegal material from your blog, when pointed out to you, you may become responsible.

Of course, if you do remove the material, it may be viewer as editorial control, so it is damned if you do, and damned if you don't.