Libel Case Could Chill Speech Online
EFF, ACLU Ask California Supreme Court to Restore Free Speech
Protections for Internet Users and Service Providers
California - Last week the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and
the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU) filed
a friend-of-the-court brief in a case that could undermine a federal
statute protecting the free speech of bloggers, Internet service
providers, and other individuals who use the Internet to post content
written by others. The case in question is a libel suit filed against
women's health advocate Ilena Rosenthal after she posted a
controversial opinion piece on a Usenet news group. The piece was
written not by Rosenthal, but by Tim Bolen, a critic of plaintiff
Terry Polevoy.
In their brief, EFF and the ACLU argue that Section 230 of the federal
Telecommunications Act of 1996 protects Internet publishers from being
held liable for allegedly harmful comments written by others. Similar
attempts to eliminate the protections created by Section 230 have
almost universally been rejected, until a California Court of Appeals
radically reinterpreted the statute to allow lawsuits against
non-authors. The case is being reviewed by the California Supreme
Court.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that Rosenthal is liable because
posting the comments makes her a "developer" of the information in
question, and she therefore becomes the legal equivalent of its
creator for the purposes of the lawsuit. If the court finds in favor
of the plaintiffs, the implications for free speech online are
far-reaching. Bloggers could be held liable when they quote other
people's writing, and website owners could be held liable for what
people say in message boards on their sites. The end result is that
many people would simply cease to publish or host websites. In its
brief, EFF argues that "the specter of civil liability chills the
speech" of Internet service providers and users, and will inevitably
lead to "protective self-censorship."
"Every other jurisdiction addressing Section 230 has given effect to
Congress' broad protections and Internet speech has flourished as a
result," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "The Court of Appeals
upset this settled law and we are simply asking the California Supreme
Court to set things right."
"Section 230 protects the ordinary people who use the Internet and
email to pass on items of interest written by others, free from the
fear of potentially ruinous lawsuits filed by those who don't like
what was said about them," said ACLU Staff Attorney Ann Brick. "The
vitality of the Internet would quickly dissipate if the posting of
content written by others created liability. The impulse to
self-censor would be unavoidable."
.
|
