Slashdot Mirror
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."
Microsoft sells your soul to satan!
*runs*
I once wrote a slanderous piece about someone and they, knowing that I had no money, determined that the brand of pen that I wrote the document with (pre-computer) was Bic, then filed a lawsuit agains Bic corporation for supplying me with the tool I used for my slanderous remarks.
Note: The above did not really happen. It just served to make a (ball) point.
So would this ruling have prevented this story (from the slashdot hall of fame) from having happened?
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I guess that depends on whether you're stating opinion or fact. Everyone is entitled to their opinion no matter how stupid it is.
None of these cases will ever go anywhere.
"I never made any claim that my blogg is a lagitimate source of factual material" case dismissed.
If it works for Fox news it should certainly work for a blog.
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
Please help metamoderate.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.