“People take advantage of the anonymity to say things in public they would never say to anyone face-to-face. "Bloggers didn't think they could be subject to libel," says Eric Robinson, a Media Law Resource Center attorney. "You take what is on your mind, type it and post it." Under the 1996 Communications Decency Act, individuals who post messages are responsible for their content and can be sued for libel. That applies whether they are posting on their own website or on others' message boards...
USA TODAY has on article on blogs, the burgeoning, freewheeling Internet forums that give people the power to instantly disseminate messages worldwide. Blogs are increasingly being targeted by those who feel harmed by blog attacks. A few months ago PowerBlog! was threatened with a lawsuit by a man who was mentioned in one of my posts. The story was factual and I stand by my post. (Even in a court of law if need be). However lawsuits cna be a big nuscience.
In the past two years, more than 50 lawsuits stemming from postings on blogs and website message boards have been filed across the nation. The suits have spawned a debate over how the "blogosphere" and its revolutionary impact on speech and publishing might change libel law.
Right here in Pittsburgh, Todd Hollis, a criminal defense lawyer, has filed a libel suit against a website called DontDateHimGirl.com, which includes message boards in which women gossip about men they supposedly dated. One posting on the site accused Hollis of having herpes. Another said he had infected a woman he once dated with a sexually transmitted disease. Yet another said he was gay. Hollis, 38, who says the accusations are false, is suing the site's operator, Tasha Joseph, and the posters of the messages.
Ligonier Ministries, a religious broadcaster and publisher in Lake Mary, Fla., has taken the unusual step of asking a judge to pre-emptively silence a blogger to try to prevent him from criticizing the ministries.
Robert Cox, founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, which has 1,000 members, says the recent wave of lawsuits means that bloggers should bone up on libel law. "It hasn't happened yet, but soon, there will be a blogger who is successfully sued and who loses his home," he says. "That will be the shot heard round the blogosphere."
All pro-bono lawyers are asked to email me :)
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