Internet Law

First before I say anything else, I want to do the blogging equivalent to shouting from the rooftops. I'M DONE WITH MY FIRST LIBEL REPORT FOR MEDIA LAW! Wow, I feel so much better!

Wait, before you run away and commit me to an insane asylum, there is a point to my little rant. While compiling my report for Media Law, I did discover something that pertains to blogging and Internet communication.

In the California Supreme Court case Barrett v. Rosenthal, the justices ruled that on the Internet, people or service providers cannot be held accountable for the republication or posting of defamatory information created by someone else. (The following commentary will probably make more sense if you read the ruling or stories about this case with the links below. To find the ruling, Google Barrett v. Rosenthal and then go to this site: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Barrett_v_Rosenthal/ruling.pdf. Sorry, my link was not working!)

In one way, I find that case to be very encouraging. It would really suck if I unknowingly linked some defamatory article to my blog and then got sued for libel. On the other hand, if I did know that I was publishing libelous material, shouldn't I be accountable in some way for spreading the defaming material even if I'm not the original author?

Overall, I think the California Supreme Court handled this case well. They followed federal law (Communications Decency Act 1996), and I believe one of the justices made the note that you probably shouldn't spread libelous information about people over the Internet even after the court's ruling. Basically right now, there seems to be a hole in the federal legislation that allows individuals who know information is defaming to republish that information on the Internet anyway. I think as an individual you should look out for others. For example, I will strive to not post libelous content on this blog, no matter if I am the author or not.

As for internet providers, though, I think they should not be held accountable for what people post on their sites or what people say through comments. These providers probably get hundred of posts or comments a day, so to ask them to go through all the content to make sure it's not objectionable is unreasonable. Plus, they might just erase questionable comments before making sure the information is actually libelous. That practice would just chill online speech and silence honest discussion.

Well, I've just brushed the surface of this case. If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to visit these sites: Citizen Media Project, ACLU of Northern California or just Google Barrett v. Rosenthal.