Another Court Rules That Site Operators Are Not Liable For Other's Content

from the turning-into-quite-a-battle dept

It appears that the question of whether or not website operators are liable for the content that is posted to their site (even if approved by them) is getting more and more decisions to toss into the mix. This started getting attention last year when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that passing on an email, even if the email itself was libelous, is not libel itself. Meanwhile, last week we mentioned a case that is ongoing in Michigan about a professor posting a student's essay to the web, where the essay might be libelous. The court has rejected the professor's plea to throw out the case, suggesting that they may eventually find him liable as well. However, over in New Jersey, a court has ruled that the maintainer of a website discussing the local government in Emerson New Jersey is not liable for comments posted on that site by anonymous users. In this case, local politicians accused the maintainer of the site of editing and rewriting some of the anonymous comments -- to suggest he might be liable. However, the court disagreed, saying the law clearly grants online publishers great immunity over these issues. Oddly, the politicians who filed the lawsuit still tried to claim this as a victory, by saying they had driven the specific site offline. That seems like a pretty weak claim. Even though the courts have said they were wrong, these people are happy that their legal crusade has forced someone providing discussion groups offline. Not quite sure how that's a victory. Government officials forcing people to stop criticizing them? That sounds more like censorship.