Site Told To Pay $338k Because Of Someone Else's Comments
from the that's-not-right dept
We've written a few times about former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader/former school teacher Sarah Jones' ridiculous lawsuit against TheDirty.com, because one of its users had posted some claims that were potentially defamatory towards her. The case has been something of a mess. As we noted a few years ago, she sued the wrong company, filing the actual lawsuit against the company which runs TheDirt.com (not TheDirty.com). Eventually that got sorted out, and what should have been a straight quick dismissal because of Section 230 of the CDA (which says a site is not liable for statements made by users) was muddled because a judge didn't seem to like the website. The judge flat out claims that if a site has "dirt" in its name, it may not be subject to Section 230 protections. And that's kinda scary for those of us here at Techdirt.First, the name of the site in and of itself encourages the posting only of “dirt,” that is material which is potentially defamatory or an invasion of the subject’s privacy.Of course, having allowed the case to move forward and flat out contradicted pretty much every ruling on Section 230 to date, the jury has now said the site needs to pay $338,000. The lawyer for TheDirty.com is actually happy about this, because he can finally get the case out of that judge's court and bring it to an appeals court which might actually understand Section 230.
“I’m happy,” says David Gingras, lawyer for the TheDirty.com. “We have spent three and a half years litigating against a federal judge who thinks the Internet is an Atari video game. To have an adverse judgment is never a good thing, but it’s good for us to get out of that court.”Of course, Kash Hill, at Forbes, also points out that Jones -- who claims her reputation was harmed by the claims on TheDirty.com -- seems to have done some damage to her own reputation, well beyond just suing the wrong site:
The three and a half years since the case was filed have been drama-filled. Jones originally sued the wrong site. She then amended her complaint to sue the right site, but had to take time off for her own criminal suit after she was charged with having sex with a minor. Her first trial against The Dirty ended in a hung jury. Meanwhile, she got engaged to the minor, a former student of hers. Needless to say, she is no longer teaching. Richie was happy to point out on his blog (repeatedly) that Jones ruined her own reputation in the years after his site published a warning about her.Hopefully, we won't get sued for reposting that comment. After all, we are a website with "dirt" in the domain name.
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Filed Under: dirt, sarah jones, secondary liability, section 230
Companies: thedirty.com
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The judge will rule that the site is full of shit making it immune to defamation law suits.
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Bah! A website's domain name is not necessarily indicative of its purpose, and even if the website's purpose is to spread "dirt" on people it does not necessarily mean its purpose is to spread defamatory statements or violate a subject's right to privacy (which is not absolute).
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SlashDirt?
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What If...
Or libel.com
Or slander.com
Or federaljudgesinahurry.com
Or showmybias.com
Talk about morons in a hurry, how do these people get appointed?
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Do I have to get the banana down with the stick to qualify or could I just stand on the chair?
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voila, you're a judge...
kind of like how juries are automagically stacked for the persecutor and against the defendant: you don't believe in the death penalty, off the jury; believe in jury nullification, off the jury; believe the law is an ass, off the jury...
the people who would stand up against injustices are systematically removed from any consideration, and all you have left are authoritarians who will do whatever the judge/persecution say...
doesn't make it fair, but makes it easier to enforce the system upon all us poor schmucks...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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A full stop, also known as a period, is commonly used in grammatically-correct statements to indicate the end of a sentence.
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i think stpudpeople.com is taken
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After two hours, first on-topic and substantive post:
"The jury of eight women and two men also found website operator Nik Richie acted with malice or reckless disregard in posting the submissions he said were anonymous." -- Even WITH the obvious problems, appears that the jury were dull moralists like me who believe that law is for protecting individuals, not shielding a business which gets money by peddling dirt.
And the notion that conviction by jury makes an attorney happy is a lie: an appeal won't automatically succeed now that the facts have been decided.
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Mr. Masnick places much faith in Mr. Goldman's analysis of Section 230; perhaps too much as disconnects do arise between those whose primary focus is on academia and those whose primary focus is on the day to day practice of law. Maybe Mr. Goldman's view will ultimately carry the day on appeal, but at this juncture there are numerous differences between this case and those where 230 was successfully applied, and it is because of these differences that I am inclined to be more circumspect in predicting an outcome.
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It's the difference I guess between selling a gun and telling the buyer to go shoot someone.
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So one court case apparently proves Mike wrong, but the dozens of similar cases that went the other way don't prove Mike right? Way to pick and choose like the intellectual giant you aren't...
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i like it ! ! !
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