Blog-o-slander
A recent article in VNU Network online magazine reported the views of retired Oregon Supreme Court Justice Edward Fadeley that blog posting and comments are a veritable "Wild West" of uncontrolled "verbal ambushes and shootouts." Justice Fadeley opines that defamation enforcement will not go unchecked for much longer.
The context of the article dealt mostly with business, and cited that 50%+ of the attacks were from competitors and those who stand to profit from a sullied business reputation of a rival. However, the phenomenon wouldn't be limited to business. Politics are increasingly slanted through blogs and related comments, as was pointed out in this Tech Web online magazine article on the Lieberman senatorial race in Connecticut.
There may be particular trouble with anonymous comments posted to blogs, that even on the North Coast tend to go over the top in terms of personal attacks. If slanderous statements are made, should the primary blog author have to monitor and edit or remove the comments altogether? Since free speech is jealously guarded in the blogosphere, this will not go over very well. Local blogster Captain Buhne at one time freely allowed comments, blocked them altogether and then switched back to free comments. As of this week, he shut the comments back down due to liability issues. Others such as Fred's Humboldt Blog have to occasionally step in and remove a particularly offensive comment.
I have spend my adult life working in courts in either the public or private sector and this much I can say with impunity ... we live in a highly litigious society and someone, somewhere is going to get sued for defamation of character over this stuff. This will start a chain of similar lawsuits and laws that will attempt to regulate blogs and the terms and conditions under which comments are allowed. None of these are good prospects, in my view.
I am a voracious reader of Abraham Lincoln and as odd as it sounds in today's security conscious world, he used to allow public audiences with just plain citizens who would drop by the White House to tell the President what was on their minds. He called it his daily bath in public opinion.
In some respects, a free an unfettered exchange of comments such as those we see in local blogs gives the reader an unvarnished view of public opinion. This assumes, of course, that the comments are not dominated by a chosen few who purport to speak on behalf of the hoi polloi. But of course that doesn't happen here.
Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com
Comments
With some recent weirdness on my own blog, I've been wondering what my legal responsibility might be as well. And what kind of chances are Blogger and the other companies who create the cookie cutter blogs taking? It's uncharted, and I hope it remains that way. I have occasionally zapped certain posts that I found particularly unreasonable, but I don't relish the role of thought cop. Even in standard slander and libel cases, pure hyperbole is protected, and I tend to think that the actual damage to any reputation is probably minimal as I don't think most people take anonymous comments seriously. That has always been National Enquirer's defense, namely - "nobody takes us seriously anyway."
Adding to the slander aspect is the creepiness of odd statements made from anonymity, also a recent issue on my blog and Buhne's. When people make threats anonymously, that should be taken seriously, even if it's just somebody's sick idea of humor.
Posted by: Eric Kirk | August 25, 2006 01:04 AM