Bloggers Immune From Suits Against Commenters

An anonymous reader writes "Suppose a commenter posts a libelous comment here at Slashdot. Can Slashdot and its owners be sued for defamation? A federal appeals court just held that no, they cannot. The court noted that a federal law was designed to ensure that 'within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,' adding that, were the law otherwise, it would have an 'obvious chilling effect' on blogger speech."

Comments

will they then

[Neuropol]

try and follow suit against the comment poster?

Re:will they then

[PopeRatzo]

PCM2, I absolutely agree, except for your last sentence. I think SCOTUS has been overly hard on slander and libel suits when the plaintiff is a "public figure", allowing a level of ugliness in discourse that exceeds the worst in our history. Even in the most divisive days of our Civil War, when public figures would say stuff that caused them to fight duels to the death, you didn't hear the kind of stuff you hear today (I'm something of a political history hobbyist, and I've checked). You can read certain blogs or tune into talk radio any evening to hear a lot worst than "GW Bush is a child molester". Recently, it has become common to hear the loudmouths on the Salem Radio outlet here in Chicago refer to members of congress as "drug addicted communist traitors who should to be hung" (note, not "deserve to be hung", but "should be hung"). In fact, yesterday the afternoon guy was talking about how Bill Clinton was a serial rapist and murderer. His callers ran with that thought into an area that went way, way past slander. And by the way, he wasn't talking about "murder" in the sense of "sent soldiers to their death in a needless war" or "left hurricane victims to die", but in the sense that he personally killed someone with his own hands. This stuff goes on every single day on thousands of AM radio stations across the US. The network (SRN)that carries this stuff likes to run promos about how "Your Opinion Counts". mm hmm. Then they'll cry about how their political adversaries are so full of "anger and hate".

And it gets lots, lots worse, with no suits brought because Federal judges would throw them out since it was about a "public figure" and "protected, political speech". It seems that there's a concerted effort to make the level of discourse so outrageous that no serious issue could ever be discussed, allowing election results to be dictated further by the fun-house mirrors of our "personality" media.

Re:Let's test it out....

[gQuigs]

It said message board operators are not liable. They could still sue individual users on the site.

Hall of fame story

[The_Wilschon]

So would this ruling have prevented this story (from the slashdot hall of fame) from having happened?

What about graffiti?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I suggest that suing a Blogger for hosting a comment is a bit like suing New York City because it hosts the graffiti written on building walls.

Re:What about graffiti?

[The_Wilschon]

But only a bit. The blogger can quite easily delete the offending post within a few clicks. NYC has to send a guy with not only a bucket of paint and brushes, but also an armed escort, to remove the offending graffiti. Much more difficult and much more expensive. Furthermore, NYC is a public entity, a blogger is a private entity.

ruling doesn't mention "blog" anywhere...

[SuperBanana]

were the law otherwise, it would have an 'obvious chilling effect' on blogger speech.

The actual lawsuit has little to do with bloggers, which is nicely glossed over by (surprise) the blogger "reporting" on this. In fact, the word "blog" doesn't appear anywhere in the entire PDF, and the assertation that this "Reaffirms Immunity of Bloggers from Suits Brought Against Commenters" is almost complete hyperbole on the part of the blogger. The court's opinion seems aimed at mailing lists and web boards, and could also apply to cases like Myspace's big "Oops" with their spyware-laden advertising friends. Good luck arguing the finer points of who's the content provider of what with that one. Anyway....

Some Devil's Advocate comments:

If a reporter writes, "Bill Smith bonks goats" and the paper prints it (and doesn't retract it), how is that different from some goofball writing "Bill Smith bonks goats" and the website owner not taking it down when informed of the error? Granted, one is an employee (sometimes), but in both situations, the owner/operator has the technical capability to edit, fact check, etc. Volume isn't really an excuse; newspapers could easily say the same thing. "Gee, we have so many reporters, we can't be expected to keep tabs on each one."

Another example: a streaker runs past a TV camera that's live. Guess what? The streaker gets arrested, but the TV station could be fined by the FCC; the FCC can't say "well, shucks, we can't really stop people from doing that sort of thing, it's live!"; the FCC turns around and says "We don't care, make sure it doesn't happen again"; data, most TV isn't live; it's run off a delay loop, and someone's got their hand over a Big Red Button that cuts the feed. This became very popular after a California TV station "accidentally" broadcast a guy blowing his brains out (I believe after a highway chase).

I'm tired of all this. Bloggers seem like the little naive children of the media; chiefly, they seem shocked and amazed that you can't ignore centuries of common law: you say something and it damages another party, you could be held liable in a civil suit for said damages. Anonymity isn't anything new or special; in fact, in the 1700's anonymously published papers were part of our nation's founding.

Re:sue the makers of Pens

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, when you put it like that everyone would think your crazy but if someone were to suggest suing firearms manufacturers for things done with their products many people would have no problem with that.

Re:Let's test it out....

[maxume]

There is a difference between racism, homophobia and hate speech, and inciting someone to violence.

I don't really care if I live in a world where people with ugly thoughts refrain from expressing them because of the rules. I see no(little?) virtue in meeting the basic requirements of society. It always wacks me out when people show offense at 'sinners'; I can see showing concern for a sinner, but why the hell would you take it as a personal offense that someone else is scum?

Re:Let's test it out....

[general_re]

I'm not sure that the turds who run those sites should be allowed to skate completely free from responsibility for the repositories of ugliness that their comments sections have become, when they clearly encourage the basest instincts of their most twisted readers.

Since such liability wouldn't likely be limited solely to board operators you happen to dislike, I guess the only question is who gets to the courthouse first - the people suing Free Republic and LGF, or the people suing DKos and Democratic Underground. If we really put our minds to it, we can eliminate interactive message boards altogether.

Re:Let's test it out....

[FLEB]

One of the fundamental points of free speech is that, while they are not censored, we are all free to dismiss such bozos as the gaggle of nuts that they are, and spread word of this far and wide.

Re:Let's test it out....

[Wordsmith]

No, no it's not. It's speech, and it's clearly offensive to you (and me, from your description). You've got this wonderful ability not to expose yourself to it.

Now, if they posters are actively encouraging people to shoot one another (not just saying some people deserve to be shot), or making threats that they'll do so, that's something else altogther.

Ugly is ugly, but it ain't up to us to decide what's too ugly. You have every right to be racist, homophobic and hateful. Just don't expect an invitation to dinner at my place or try to date my daughter.