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Monday, December 03, 2007
Times Argus take on iBrattleboro suit
Another twist on my last post...
Dan Barlow had an interesting article in the Times Argus yesterday about the lawsuit against iBrattleboro.
It's my understanding that iBrat is covered under the Communications Decency Act (Section 230, I think), so they should be fine legally.
But I have to agree with Traci Griffith's assessment:
"The government is still playing catch-up with the Internet in a lot of areas, especially around speech," said Traci Griffith, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at St. Michael's College in Colchester. "It's too bad we didn't have the foresight to address some of these issues earlier, but we are going to see new attempts to regulate the Internet in the next few years."
Will the laws change? Will websites become liable for comments posted by 3rd parties? It does seem unlikely. Can you imagine someone having to read and filter every single comment on every single web forum before it got published? That seems crazy to me.
But maybe that's because I'm one of the people who would have to do it.
I mean, I think hands-on moderation is key to hosting a healthy discussion. It's definitely smart to read comments and remove them if they violate a policy, but pre-screening seems too labor-intensive to me for a site like iBrat. And it would put up a barrier that could inhibit the community conversation that makes the site so useful.
Incidentally, what's up with the lack of links in this story? C'mon, Times Argus. How hard is it to link to iBrattleboro?
December 3, 2007 at 11:09 AM in Media/Keeping an eye on the competition | Permalink
Comments
The case will be laughed out of court, and BurlingtonPol's disclaimer is still the best.
Posted by: Haik Bedrosian | Dec 3, 2007 11:01:20 PM
Great article, thanks Cathy!
Blogs have become vital to the democratic process because they often break news before it bubbles up in the mainstream press, said Allen Gilbert, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
This may be because independent bloggers can take risks that traditional print and broadcast journalists can't, Gilbert said. To put it simply, sometimes bloggers have nothing to lose, while a newspaper or television station has assets it needs to protect.
I think Mr. Gilbert is confusing the low barrier to entry with low risk. Starting a blog? Very low barrier to entry. Trying to keep the blog going? Much "sweat equity", and I'm sure, if you wanted to sell the blog, you could use pageviews, user sessions, registered users, and the almighty comments as metrics establishing goodwill (which I believe is considered an asset for accounting purposes).
This also caught my eye:
"The Web site operators could lose that immunity protection if it can be shown that they made material changes to the statement before it was posted," said Ardia. "That shows they take a more active role in moderating and editing."
So, peversely, the safest route for a blog or messageboard operator may be prove that they perform no moderation whatsoever aforehand, only removal of posts once they're live.
Posted by: Nato | Dec 4, 2007 2:47:31 AM
No no Nato. There's no risk. To prove libel, the silly cheater suing iBrattleboro will have to prove the claim she cheated is false. And that's impossible, whether iBrat had a hand in the comment or not, which they didn't. People make claims and say things all the time. Only a fool believes everything he reads and hears. It's up to the viewer to sort out what they think is credible and what isn't. Caveat emptor.
And you don't have to tell people they are responsible for their own comments in a disclaimer to make it so. People are responsible for their own comments, so only the commenter, not iBrat is even theoretically liable in this case.
Of course there's really only one person in the world this woman has to convince she didn't cheat and that's her husband. I strongly doubt this totally frivolous and laughable suit will do much to that end.
In other news: "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; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Posted by: Haik Bedrosian | Dec 4, 2007 10:05:58 AM
So, peversely, the safest route for a blog or messageboard operator may be prove that they perform no moderation whatsoever aforehand, only removal of posts once they're live.
Yup. That's exactly the path that public access TV has tread for many years. We don't ever prescreen programming because should something that's ultimately (in a court of law) deemed illegal play out on our channel, we could potentially be held liable for permitting it to air. Likewise, if we refused to air something because we thought it might contain illegal content (i.e., content that's not protected by the words that Haik quoted above), we could face a suit on 1st amendment grounds (assuming the plaintiff could make the case that the public access staff and board are "state actors," which is possible since we are mandated into existence by the state Public Service Board. The safest route is to just be a conduit and to react to problems when you learn of them. In VCAM's case, we "react" to problems by vetting them through a lengthy process of checking with the board, our lawyer, the state's attorney's office, law enforcement, and/or any other prudent course, depending on the situation.
Posted by: bill simmon | Dec 4, 2007 11:06:06 AM
Ah, but the 'state actor' in this case-the ambulance guy was exercizing his free speech, not limiting anyone else's.
And iBrattleboro, like iBurlington only pre-screens posts, not comments.
I'm curious whether they removed the comment or not once it was posted. I delete comments at my blog all the time. And I think what I'm hearing here is that since my disclaimer says I might change people's comments, than I would be liable for illegal content in any comments on my blog.
Anybody want to name BurlingtonPol.com in a lawsuit? I'm sure that would double my stats.
Posted by: Haik Bedrosian | Dec 4, 2007 12:43:14 PM
No no Nato. There's no risk.
Haik, the comment was about blogging in general, not the iBrattleboro blog in particular.
That's exactly the path that public access TV has tread for many years. We don't ever prescreen programming because should something that's ultimately (in a court of law) deemed illegal play out on our channel, we could potentially be held liable for permitting it to air.
Far out, Bill. Makes sense. Good thing the spammers haven't caught on to this, eh? [:-)]
Actually, I wonder what's the extent of this policy re blog moderation when it comes to comment spam. If it's true that this applies to web sites that allow comments (and right now it's just conjecture), wouldn't the blog owner/moderator have to allow even the vilest comment spam, only to remove it after the fact?
Posted by: Nato | Dec 5, 2007 2:29:54 AM
Nato, re: spam:
I think spam's different because it's commercial in nature. We can block or freely delete unsolicited commercial messages.
At least, that's my understanding.
And surely none of our readers would complain.
Posted by: Cathy Resmer | Dec 5, 2007 7:25:46 AM
Well there's a difference between etiquette and what's legal. It's fine, as far as blog culture goes, to wantonly delete spam comments at will -- to moderate with the proverbial iron fist. It's frowned on to delete and/or edit non-spam comments willy nilly (as Haik apparently does). But that's different from the legal question. Staying in a hypothetical case here -- I don't know anything about the iBrat case -- I am free to moderate my comments section as thoroughly as I please. My blog is my own and the only content I cannot legally put on it is that which is not protected by the Constitution (obscenity, libel, incitement to riot, copyright infringement... it's a short list).
The question is, if I moderate my comments section closely by removing spam, deleting comments with ad hominem attacks, forbidding graphic language and posting of lewd photos, etc. -- if I hold all comments for moderation and only allow those that I think are "appropriate," am I more legally accountable for the content of those comments than if I let everything go unmoderated? If I hold comments for moderation and then I let one go that contains illegal, unprotected speech, can I be held liable for that because I "pre-screened" the comment before hand? Does my own ignorance of the content of the comment protect me? It's an interesting question.
Posted by: bill simmon | Dec 5, 2007 11:29:26 AM
It's frowned on to delete and/or edit non-spam comments willy nilly (as Haik apparently does).
Most of what I delete or redact is because it's obscene, in poor taste or threatening. But I'm open about reserving the right to be willy nilly because I want people to be skeptical about my blog and everything else. There's a meta-message to my madness. If I were really going to be irresponsible, I would probably have a normal disclaimer.
Folks can frown, but I'm doing something important. Mainstream news outlets have been known to change online versions of stories without saying they did it. They should all have a disclaimer like mine.
It's the folks who play by all the rules that you really have to watch out for.
Posted by: Haik Bedrosian | Dec 5, 2007 9:48:42 PM
Cathy,
Thanks for bringing up the iBrattleboro piece. I was waiting for you to respond. Well done. Chris & Lise appreciate all the support they've gotten!
Posted by: Brattlerouser | Dec 6, 2007 1:15:28 PM
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