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Court Rules Website Immune From Suit For Defamatory Posting

Posted by samzenpus on from the people-say-the-craziest-things dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "RipoffReport.com contained an admittedly defamatory posting, by one of its users, about a person who operated a Florida corporation providing addiction treatment services. Although the site was asked by the poster herself to remove the post, it refused. A Florida appeals court has ruled that the site is absolutely immune from suit (pdf), and cannot even be directed to remove the offending post, since under the Communications Decency Act (47 USC 230) 'no cause of action may be brought' against a provider of an "interactive computer service" based upon information provided by a 3rd party."

3 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot / Scientology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does that mean that Slashdot doesn't have to bend over and take it in the rear from Scientology anymore? That happened a few years back I believe. Only comment ever removed.

    1. Re:Slashdot / Scientology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why not? There has been authority after authority that have denounced it as doing more harm than good.
      They prescribe overdoses of Niacin which means in Canada the College of Physicians Quebec will sanction any physician who associates with Narconion Trois-Rivieres, even to the point of a Review Committee investigating that physician, which would result in ramifications such as fines or licence suspension.

      The Narconon 4 step program:
      1. victim is drawn by falsely advertised success rate
      2. victim is charged outrageous fees
      3. perpetrator cracks open victim's skull
      4. perpetrator messes with victim's brain, replacing the victim's personalty with a cult personality

  2. Re:I Just Can't Belive It by echostorm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    lies. post the ripoff report, and let us see this 'damaging' info. You can contact the administrator at EDitor@ripoffreport.com and it will be removed if it is obviously just some scary firebrand spamming bullshit. sounds like you have evidence.

    Kindof hard to feel bad for you without any evidence, or knowledge of what steps you took to exonerate yourself. This is no different from receiving a summons in the mail. you can't just ignore it and expect it to go away. If the case is interesting enough, it will be picked up by the press and distributed across the globe. If you do nothing, than the information will continue to circulate without check. Stepping in now will at least stem the tide of false info.

    If you emailed the editor with 'omg lol so sorry neva hit tha biznitch shes a hater' then of course hes going to ignore your email. Without some sort of idea of what happened, you will get no sympathy from anyone.