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Lying Online No Longer a Crime In Rhode Island
stevegee58 writes "In a sudden outbreak of common sense, Rhode Island repealed an obscure law enacted in 1989 that made it a crime to lie in online postings. Violations of this law carried a maximum penalty of $500 and up to a year in prison. From the article: '"This law made virtually the entire population of Rhode Island a criminal," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union. "When this bill was enacted nobody had any idea what its ramifications were. Telling fibs may be wrong, but it shouldn't be criminal activity." The law aimed to stop fraud, con artists and scammers, but also outlawed the "transmission of false data" regardless of whether liars stood to profit from their deception or not.'"
Bakeries across the state would have a problem. At least the ones that make cake...
If you think lying is a morally un-praiseworthy activity (a negative of what we philosophers call morally sufficient), then you are rather near-sighted indeed.
One wonders if this would have covered all of those "Campaign Promises" made by politicians in their zeal to get elected... or any of the other spewage which regularly emanates from their persons...??? If so, this law might have had a useful purpose after all. What would it take to get such a law enacted in Washington D.C.?
Good I ain't from Rhode Island anyway.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Is that actually true? Because I read it online in a blog from Rhode Island...
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
I suspect that it wouldn't have stood up in court anyway. Surely it would be unconstitutional. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie.
Good I ain't from Rhode Island anyway.
People from Rhode Island are so honest that this law was just a formality, nobody there would ever lie. I know this is true because someone from Rhode Island told me, and people from Rhode Island are so honest ....
It does if you simply call it "freedom of speech" and then list no exceptions.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"Does this make me look fat?"
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; ..."
From the article: '"This law made virtually the entire population of Rhode Island a criminal," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union
Does he claim all of them are liars? Good thing it was Rhode Island. Them fighting words in Arkansas and Texas.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
One part of protecting one's privacy is not to give real data on registration forms. Technically, a sort of lying.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The common sense is that most of the consequences that can come from lying (betrayal, fraud etc.pp.) are already punishable, and this law would then just penalize those lies which had no further consequences. And the common sense was that about everything smalltalk can be deconstructed to be purely lying: "Good Morning". We lie all the time, imagine contractual talks without small or big lies ("$1000 will be my last offer.", and then they finally agree to $1100). Why this should be punishable per se if it happens online is not clear.
RI resident here...
Let me think about what we had back in 1989...
In South County RI, we had a handful of BBSes and URI's access to Bitnet if you had an academic account or begged for one, not even the Internet. Everyone was still at 300, 1200, and a few at 2400, and almost nobody had v32 (9600bps) modems because they were new in 1989 and ridiculously expensive.
If you had more money than sense, you subscribed to CompuServe, Prodigy, or GEnie (to be called AOL later) and paid by the minute and also paid for the long distance to the Warwick or Providence numbers (Yay in-state long distance in a state only 47 miles the long way!). BBSes were free.
The community was so small. You could literally visit all the boards from Block Island to East Greenwich and read all the messages in an hour if you ignored the redialling. We also didn't have OmniNet or LOCNet yet to tie north/south RI and the Islands/East Bay together yet. That had to wait for the heyday of BBSes in the early 90s, and even then, you could fit everyone who cared about OmniNet administration (north AND south!) into one Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor (we couldn't meet at Casey's because half of everyone was under-age).
And everyone knew each other.
There wasn't much to lie about online at all. Really, there wasn't. It puzzles me as to what prompted this legislation that far back.
The only big whopper of a lie I remember was Matt saying his BBS couldn't be hacked, some time in the early 90s. This was a challenge to everyone at the meeting and pissed off his co-sys, who gave him up to the rest of us hyenas.
Shout out to LizardKing on here, who is the only RIer I know on here from that era.
--
BMO
now if it is legal to lie on the internet, does that than mean lying about agreeing to a eula or other digital contract is valid if said agreement unlocks software after key exchange over the Internet?
Lying on the internet is not a crime per se anymore in this state, but fraud would still be a crime, including fraud that was committed by lying on the internet. You can't lie about agreeing to a Eula - you can only click on a button without agreeing, in which case you usually have no rights to the software in question, which makes every single use of the software copyright infringement. If there is an unlock of DRM restricted software, then there is a DMCA violation. Of course if things went to court, nobody can prove that you didn't agree, so you can always claim that you _did_ agree, with all the consequences of that. Which in the end means it doesn't matter much whether you agree or not when you click. (And of course if things went to court, you could always say that you didn't agree, even if you did, whatever is better for you. Copyright infringement + DMCA violation vs. whatever the EULA said).
That would mean, unfortunately, that Scientology is allowed again in RI. Certainly they were prosecuted in Rhode Island for their blatant lies and deception?
Hail Xenu!
I was all set up to sell online sarcasm detection software in RI.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is awesome for Curt Schilling. Now he can embellish his bloggy arse off until the cows come home about what a heroic job creator he is and not have to worry about getting nicked for it.
Freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie.
Yes, you're free to do so...you're not free to do it without consequences in certain circumstances, though.
It was one of many examples of democracies trying to "simplify" our decisions with a rule or law. If you ask a majority of people what should be "allowed" they will create a set of rules which not even Nazis and Maoists can successfully regulate. Three strikes and you're out laws lead to medical marijuana and Supreme Court "cruel and unusual" laws overturned. Society desperately needs "depth perception", the ability to implement laws and regulation based on 1) priority of risk, and 2) feasibility of regulating. The "risks" posed by X (lying on the internet, gay or interracial marriage, immigration, piracy, smoking pot) are nothing compared to the risk of society with a power to ban them or the power of the mafia to corrupt that regulation. Society's cognitive risk dissonance has created thousands of laws just as silly as this Rhode Island example. We need to start at the top and prioritize real risks and feasible enforcement.
Gently reply
Does that mean sending a 0 over the internet was illegal?
Oh shit! I lie online ALL THE TIME! In fact, I am telling a lie right now!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Because there's a difference between society generally tolerating something, and society passing an overly broad draconian law.
And what exactly is wrong with me lying to prevent my wife from finding out about the surprise Birthday party we're having for her? Lying is not always wrong, despite what you might have been told by your parents when you were three years old.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Freedom of Speech is always limited in some fashion.
Yes, people are allowed to lie, but there are still exceptions to our freedom of speech (because in the law books they are followed by a list of exceptions).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Which, in reality, is not what happened.
Everyone seems to forget that the first amendment has specific words in it with specific meanings, and they arent "you have the right to say whatever you want under any circumstance".
... the argument is that the facilitation of falsehood, generally quite strictly proscribed in philosophical contexts, is simply a nod-nod-wink-wink affair?
While I know that some companies would like to push this notion on everybody, this probably depends on where a person lives, and whether or not violating terms of an EULA is considered to be against the law. In most places, afaik, it is not... and *CERTAINLY* does not cause every use to be copyright infringement... it only causes the usages to be unauthorized. Copyright infringement involves unauthorized copies, not unauthorized use.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Fraud, perjury, libel, slander, making false statements.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Your freedom to lie stops at my face... or something.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Actually, the law said it was a misdemeanor to "intentionally send false data". Now, you could parse that as "(intentionally) (send false data)", but you could also parse that as "(intentionally send) (false data)". Under the second parsing, it would be a crime not only to lie, but even to be mistaken about something!
"Does this make me look fat?"
For the (untrue) answer to that question, you might claim self defence.
Otherwise known as the religion loophole.
Have gnu, will travel.
The issue of RAM copies being subject to the permissions applicable for copyrighted works is highly questionable, since a copy made into RAM is necessary for the work to simply be USED. Since usage is not governed by copyright, it follows that copies that are made merely as a consequence of trying to use the work normally cannot be either.
Admittedly, in some jurisdictions, this is a fairly hot issue. Again, it depends on whether or not regional laws have determined that EULA's have any legal weight to them.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, and fraud.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Let's define terms here: Lying means intentionally making statements to lead people to believe something that the liar knows isn't true.
We lie all the time
Speak for yourself.
And the common sense was that about everything smalltalk can be deconstructed to be purely lying: "Good Morning".
False example. In common parlance, "Good morning" is a short form of something like "I wish you a good morning", not a statement that it is, or has been, a good morning.
imagine contractual talks without small or big lies ("$1000 will be my last offer.", and then they finally agree to $1100). Why this should be punishable per se if it happens online is not clear.
It looks as if part of your point is that because many people in our society lie in order to advance their desires (as in your example of contract negotiation), lying is therefore required and therefore acceptable.
Lying is NOT necessary. However, many people fear that the consequence of being truthful may be greater than the consequence of lying.
The rationale for lying not being against the law most of the time is that it would be nearly impossible to enforce, the most obviously damaging instances of lying are already illegal (fraud, slander, libel, etc), and people presume that most lies are not harmful, because the negative effects are not immediately visible.
Which, in reality, is not what happened.
It isn't? If you're going by what it literally says, it really doesn't list any exceptions. Whether you think that's a good idea is another matter.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
or is anyone else concerned about the implications of this law and its interaction with a corporation's on-line presence? It seems too easy to justify false claims in on-line discussions/reviews with this sort of thing. Maybe I misread this article, and it really does just apply to individual people and not businesses, but I didn't see that anywhere.
If she asks you "Is she prettier than me?"
Never answer these with the truth, if the truthful answer would be "no".
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Wouldn't that make the original sale fraud? Imagine if I sold you a coffee maker, then when you opened the box you found another box and a note informing you that opening the inner box means you're bound to some extra terms - the very best I could hope for would be that you'd ignore the whole thing as a practical joke, rather than rise a stink. But somehow this kind of ridiculous shit is business as usual with software "sales".
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
why was this moded troll it was an honest question?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
17 USC 117 (a) (1)