Libel Tourism Law Official... Including Important Nod To Section 230 Safe Harbors

from the this-is-good dept

We spend a lot of time discussing bad legislation around here, every so often it's nice to hear of some good legislation. Last month, we noted that an anti-libel tourism bill was making its way through Congress, which would protect US citizens from foreign libel judgments on laws that went against the First Amendment. Thankfully, that bill has now been signed into law -- and it may be even better than we initially expected. That's because, at the urging of folks such as Public Citizen, Congress inserted a bit into the law that also extends the important Section 230 safe harbors to this bill.

As you hopefully know, Section 230 safe harbors make sure that liability is properly applied. That is, it says you can't blame an online service provider for actions by its users. This is incredibly important if you believe that liability should be applied to the appropriate parties. However, very few other countries have such safe harbors, leading to regular lawsuits against service providers (often US service providers) for the actions of their users. Now, this law protects US service providers from such judgments.

Perhaps equally important as having this extension in the law is the discussion on the floor about including Section 230 safe harbors, because that's now a part of the Congressional record, where various elected officials make explicit the reasons why Section 230 protections make sense.

The purpose of this provision is to ensure that libel tourists do not attempt to chill speech by suing a third-party interactive computer service, rather than the actual author of the offending statement.

In such circumstances, the service provider would likely take down the allegedly offending material rather than face a lawsuit. Providing immunity removes this unhealthy incentive to take down material under improper pressure.

This is important, especially at a time when some have been attempting to seriously cripple Section 230 safe harbors by pretending they serve some other purpose outside of the proper application of liability.

Filed Under: defamation, first amendment, liability, libel, libel tourism, section 230

Is It Defamation To Call The Couple Who Got Into White House Dinner 'Party Crashers'?

from the publicity-stunters? dept

THREsq points us to the news that the lawyer for Michaele and Tereq Salahi, most well-known for um... attending a White House State Dinner for which they were not on the attendance list... that if you refer to them as "party crashers," they may sue you for defamation. Good luck with that. As Matthew Belloni notes in that blog post:

Our quick Google search for "white house party crashers" delivers 158,000 results, the first few pages of which all feature the Salahis. And we're pretty sure we've never heard Ms. Salahi, currently starring on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C.," referred to as anything except "White House party crasher Michaele Salahi."

I can't see how any court would hold up a defamation claim here. While the Salahis' lawyer points out that the couple was not charged with anything, that assumes that "party crashing" is only defined by whether or not it is a crime. It is not. Showing up at a party to which you're not on the invite list seems like the textbook definition of party crashing. Now, they're also claiming that they thought they were invited, but even if that's the case, it doesn't change the fact that they were apparently not on the guestlist.

It also seems pretty strange to send out a press release warning journalists of this point... and to do so eight months after the event in question. While the other complaint in the press release is that journalists have suggested the Salahis did this as a publicity stunt for a reality TV show, it really must make you wonder why they're suddenly bringing it back up again, many months later, after pretty much all talk about the couple has died down.

Filed Under: defamation, journalism, michaele salahi, tereq salahi

The Irish Red Cross Sues Google To Silence Anonymous Blogger, Amplifying That Blogger's Message

from the and-that-backfired dept

Claire Ryan wrote in to let us know about the bizarre situation in Ireland, where the Irish Red Cross has sued Google in an attempt to identify and silence an anonymous blogger who has been very critical of the organization. It's worth noting, by the way, that Google is apparently one of the Red Cross' largest donors. Apparently, the Irish Red Cross is specifically upset that the blogger claimed that $150,000 that the Irish Red Cross collected for the Asian tsunami appeal was not actually used for that. Instead, the blogger claims, it was held in a bank for years, and the money was only moved after there was an audit which discovered the account.

Of course, it sounds like nearly everything about the Irish Red Cross' decision to go legal is backfiring. This story, which wasn't getting much attention, is now getting a ton of attention -- and it's not looking good for the Irish Red Cross. Apparently, because of the publicity over the Irish Red Cross' decision to sue Google, The Sunday Times ran a front page article about the $150,000.

In other words, by suing to try to silence the blogger over this particular issue, the issue itself has become front page news. But what's not clear is why the IRC is still going after this blogger. Now that the news is everywhere, what good does it do to try to silence this guy? Will they sue The Sunday Times next?

Filed Under: anonymity, defamation, ireland, red cross
Companies: google, irish red cross

Spamhaus Asks Court To Dump Even The $27,000 Award To Spammer

from the spam-spam-spam-spam dept

Back in June we wrote about how the years-long lawsuit between "email marketing" (i.e., "spam") company e360 and anti-spam group Spamhaus concluded with a judge reducing an $11 million award down to just $27,000 for e360. If you don't recall, e360 sued Spamhaus for naming it on its top spammers list -- despite an awful lot of evidence that e360 does, in fact, engage in spam. Spamhaus, which is based in the UK, ignored the proceedings, which is why it got hit with the $11 million award. While, e360 can't be happy about the lower award (one has to imagine its legal costs were much greater than that), $27,000 is still a lot of money for an operation like Spamhaus -- especially when the organization was just stating an opinion -- and one that it backed up with plenty of evidence.

So now, Michael Scott points us to the news that Spamhaus has filed a motion to reconsider even the $27,000 award, noting that it believes there are some errors in determining the $27,000 number. The filing notes that such motions are rarely successful, but lays out the reasons why it makes sense in this case. Specifically, the method for calculating the award was not one of the methods that e360 asked for, meaning Spamhaus had no chance to point out problems with the methodology. Spamhaus also makes it clear that if the court does not reconsider the $27,000, it will likely appeal the case back up to an appeals court. I can understand why Spamhaus is doing this, but it could backfire. I would imagine that asking the court to reconsider could potentially lead to a judge reconsidering in the other direction as well...

Filed Under: awards, defamation, spam
Companies: e360, spamhaus

Parents Not Responsible For Kids' Nasty Facebook Posts

from the computers-are-not-dangerous-weapons dept

Last year, we wrote about yet another misguided lawsuit filed about activity on Facebook. Apparently, a group of students at a high school in New York set up a private Facebook group which, in part, was used to make fun of another student (though only six students were members). The student who was the target somehow discovered the postings and sued the classmates for libel and sued the classmate's parents for not controlling their kids. She also sued Facebook, though it had an easy Section 230 out and was quickly dropped from the lawsuit. Thankfully, the judge has now dismissed both claims, noting that while the Facebook comments were "puerile attempts by adolescents to outdo each other," and while they displayed "an utter lack of taste and propriety, they do not constitute statements of fact," even though they made some factually false assertions. As the judge noted, even though they made such assertions no reasonable person would believe it. Perhaps my favorite part of the judgment:

A reasonable reader, given the overall context of the posts, simply would not believe that the Plaintiff contracted AIDS by having sex with a horse or a baboon or that she contracted AIDS from a male prostitute who also gave her crabs and syphilis, or that having contracted sexually transmitted diseases in such manner she morphed into the devil.

Indeed.

Perhaps more importantly, the judge totally dismissed the idea that the parents were somehow responsible for the kids' postings since it would require parents giving kids a "dangerous instrument" to make them negligent. The judge noted that it is ridiculous to conclude that a computer is a "dangerous instrument," and thus there is no parent liability here:

To declare a computer a dangerous instrument in the hands of teenagers in an age of ubiquitous computer ownership would create an exception that would engulf the rule against parental liability.

The judge notes that this case may involve "cyberbullying," but thankfully New York has no anti-cyberbullying laws, so being a jerk online may still be childish, but is hardly actionable legally speaking.

Filed Under: bullying, defamation, facebook groups, parental responsibility
Companies: facebook

Website Company Threatens To Sue Guy Who Criticizes Quality Of Gordon Brown's Website

from the how-not-to-win-fans dept

Glyn Moody points us to a bizarre story of a thin-skinned exec at a UK company, called Tangent, who apparently has some sort of web content management system, which is used by many politicians in the UK, including former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who uses it for his website. A guy named Luke Bozier saw the website, and thought it looked pretty bad for the website of a former Prime Minister, and wrote a blog post about it and tweeted:

Gordon Brown's WebCreator website is not befitting of a former Prime Minister. Tangent should be ashamed.

Apparently, someone from Tangent was not impressed and sent Bozier an email threatening legal action against him if he didn't remove the tweet:

I respectfully suggest you delete that tweet, issue no more similar ones and generally try to sell your products in a more professional way. I really don't like the prospect of either a public slanting match or legal action, but if I need to protect my company's business and reputation, I will.

Of course, even with the ridiculous state of UK libel laws, it's difficult to see what's libelous about expressing an opinion about the quality of a website, and then suggesting that the company behind the tools used to create the website "should be ashamed." And, as the blog post linked above notes, this effort to silence Bozier to "protect" Tangent's reputation, has done exactly the opposite:

The word on the web is now that Tangent, previously unheard of by most, is an aggressively litigious PLC which employs threats of legal action in attempts to suppress the free expression of opinion. This is the result of the utter folly in believing that spurious controls can be put on the sheer democracy of social media.

Instant, online justice is now served on those heavy handed and mindless enough to attempt to suppress freedom of speech through impotent legal threats.

It really is amazing that people issuing such legal threats still don't realize how likely they are to backfire, though it is still amusing to watch.

Filed Under: defamation, gordon brown, twitter, uk, webcreator, websites
Companies: tangent

Vision Media's Bogus Lawsuit Dismissed; And Much More Attention Focused On Vision Media's Business Practices

from the well-that-worked-well dept

We've written a few times in the past about the attempt by Vision Media TV to use legal tricks to force down critiques of its business practice. The company, as has been covered in detail by the press, tends to focus on charities, suggesting that it will create a news report that may air on "public television" with "Hugh Downs." But the reality is that they're expecting the organization to pay, and there's no evidence that the content ever gets on TV anywhere. And Hugh Downs only participates in very, very limited cases. The company -- or one very much like it, based from the same basic place -- has gotten into legal troubles in the past. Even though the NY Times and NPR have covered Vision Media's method of doing business, Vision Media has not sued them, even though it has claimed such articles are defamatory.

Instead, it sued 800Notes.com, a website that highlights the details of various telemarketers, and claimed that it had tricks to get around the obvious Section 230 safe harbors the site faced. Thankfully, before the case could get that far, it's been tossed out. Paul Alan Levy who helped Julia Forte and 800Notes defend against the lawsuit, lets us know that the case has been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds even before the safe harbor questions came into play.

However, more important is how this is a case study of how badly such a lawsuit can backfire. The whole point of the lawsuit was to force one small site to hide criticism of Vision Media TV. But, in the process, all it did was draw a lot more attention to Vision Media's practices. As Levy notes:

As a result of the litigation, half the hits on the first page of a Google search for "Vision Media TV" now refer to the litigation and to the accusations against Vision Media.  The litigation taught many prospective customers about the anonymous charges made against Vision Media -- that Vision Media promotes its video production services by cold-calling non-profits and deceptively suggesting that it can get them free airtime on public television.  An experienced non-profit communications director, Jeff Cronin of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, detailed the various tricks Vision Media and associated enterprises had used to try to trick his group into buying its services.  

Vision Media's counsel made a ham-handed request for a gag order, complaining that public discussion of the lawsuit had become embarrassing and was threatening its relationship with Hugh Downs -- a name that Vision Media sales representatives used as entree to non-profit targets who recall Downs' former broadcast roles with respect.   And that attention led to a story on National Public Radio, embracing the anonymous accusations and reporting more detailed problems, as well as stories in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.  The Better Business Bureau withdrew its favorable rating; the rating has since been downgraded to C-, and a representative of Hugh Downs, who had been allowing Vision Media to play on his name and reputation, publicly announced plans to cut his ties with Vision Media.

When a company has been attacked online, and believes that it has hard evidence that the attacks are false, it faces hard choices about how to respond to those attacks.  What those companies don't need is the blandishments of lawyers who hope to make an easy buck by telling them that they can easily suppress criticism by suing the web sites where that criticism is hosted.  

As for non-profits, Vision Media has already tried to perpetuate its business by adopting the new name Great America HD.   Non-profits should be on the lookout for this same operation adopting new sheep's clothing.  At one point, Vision Media added the names of several staff members to the litigation.  That listing can be found here.   Non-profits who consider doing business with a TV production company employing any of these individuals -- be on your guard!

We keep hearing that lawyers are finally realizing that filing frivolous lawsuits to try to silence critics can backfire badly -- but we keep seeing new examples to the contrary. Hopefully, with each such example people realize that silencing criticism through bogus lawsuits is not a reasonable path to take.

Filed Under: defamation, julia forte, jurisdiction, libel, section 230
Companies: 800notes, great america hd, vision media tv

Senate Passes Libel Tourism Bill: Won't Recognize Ridiculous Foreign Libel Judgments

from the nice-to-see dept

We've written many, many times about the problems of libel tourism. Basically, some countries have ridiculous overbearing libel laws, that not only put the burden on those accused, but also leave open the ability of being found guilty of libel for telling the truth. With the rise of the internet meaning that something published online is published "everywhere," there's been an increase of individuals and companies suing for libel in random countries, who have stricter libel laws, claiming that since the content was available in those countries, those libel laws apply. Of course, if that's true, it would effectively mean that the lowest common denominator of restrictive laws around the world apply everywhere.

Thankfully, the US has more reasonable defamation laws than many other parts of the world (though, they could still be improved). But more and more US citizens have been caught up in libel tourism cases elsewhere. The Senate has now passed an anti-libel tourism bill, which would prevent the US courts from enforcing foreign judgments in libel cases that seem to go against the US First Amendment. The bill is expected to pass in the House as well. This all seems good, though, I have to admit that I hadn't realized US courts would enforce foreign libel decision in the US even if they went against the First Amendment. You would have thought that the US courts were already prevented from allowing things like that... Rather than just a specific "libel tourism" law, why do we allow US courts to enforce foreign rulings that appear to go against US law at all?

Filed Under: defamation, first amendment, libel, libel tourism

Indian School In Singapore Sues Parent Because Others Commented On His Blog

from the safe-harbors dept

I'm very happy that the US has very broad safe harbors for liability in the form of Section 230, though I still don't think such a law should be necessary. It should be common sense that you don't blame a third party for actions of someone else. And yet, even with Section 230 safe harbors, third parties get sued all the time in the US. And, it's even worse in other countries where there are no such protections, and some judges will put liability on a third party, creating horrible chilling effects. Over in Singapore, there's a lawsuit that could be worth following when it comes to the proper application of liability on blog comments. Reader Veri alerts us to the news that a school based in Singapore (though it runs schools around the globe) the Global Indian Foundation (GIF), sued a parent who keeps a blog about the school, not for anything that parent wrote, but what some others wrote in the comments, claiming that the comments are defamatory.

The guy who's being sued, Ajith K Narayanan, points out that he didn't write the words in question, that the terms of service on his blog make it clear that commenters are responsible for their own language and, finally, that there wasn't any defamation anyway because the comments are true. The latter two arguments are interesting, but it's the first one that's the important one. If Singapore properly applies liability to those actually responsible, the case should just get tossed out on that first issue, and the other two issues shouldn't matter at all. If the school really wants to go after the commenters for defamation, it should be required to show that there's a strong likelihood that the material was defamatory, and then request a subpoena for the commenters' information (at which point the blogger can decide whether or not to fight it). But simply suing the blogger and claiming he's liable for the possible defamation takes third party liability way too far, and hopefully the court in Singapore recognizes this.

It should be noted that there are some other oddities involved in this lawsuit as well, many of which are summarized at this Techgoss post. It appears that the school initially filed criminal charges, but those were quoshed by a judge earlier this year. Then there's the really bizarre back and forth from April, that began with a report in an Indian newspaper that police had arrested a former GIF employee, claiming that he had started the blog and that it was a "fake" blog to discredit GIF. That report claimed that Narayanan had revealed this ex-employee to be his co-blogger in an affidavit. Yet, in a post on the site, denies pretty much all of that. This seems like a bit of a sideshow, but it does make the whole case a bit more confusing...

Filed Under: blogs, comments, defamation, safe harbors, singapore
Companies: global indian foundation

Plastic Surgeon Sues Online Reviewers Who Gave Her Bad Reviews

from the slapp-anyone-lately? dept

Alan Bleiweiss points us to the news of a plastic surgeon, Kimberly Henry, in Marin, California, who is not at all happy that some people wrote bad reviews of her work on Yelp and DoctorScorecard. You can see the Yelp reviews and DoctorScorecard reviews to see for yourself. It's true that some of them are really quite scathing. Of course, there are all sorts of ways to respond to such things... and Dr. Henry has chosen to sue all of her critics for " libel and defamation, invasion of privacy and interference with prospective economic advantage" and is "seeking $1 million in general damages, $1 million in special damages, unspecified punitive damages, legal costs, injunctions against the reviewers and restraining orders."

Similar lawsuits in the past have ended poorly -- especially in California where there are pretty well-defined anti-SLAPP laws that protect commenters from abusive lawsuits designed to silence criticism. Of course, if the comments actually are defamatory, that might be a different story. If you look at the DoctorScorecard reviews, it's interesting to see some of the reviews have responses from Dr. Henry's office claiming that what's said in the reviews are not true, and there's some back and forth on some of the reviews. It's also interesting to note that DoctorScorecard handed over the IP and email addresses of commenters when asked -- with the guy who runs the site later admitting he didn't realize that he didn't have to do that (and that he no longer does just hand over the info). Update: To clarify, DoctorScorecard received a subpoena, not realizing that a subpoena could be fought.

Filed Under: critics, defamation, reviews