Bloggers Immune From Suits Against Commenters

An anonymous reader writes "Suppose a commenter posts a libelous comment here at Slashdot. Can Slashdot and its owners be sued for defamation? A federal appeals court just held that no, they cannot. The court noted that a federal law was designed to ensure that 'within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,' adding that, were the law otherwise, it would have an 'obvious chilling effect' on blogger speech."

SlashdotFS

[TheRealMindChild]

This is great. What we need now is something to post binary data as a slashdot post and a filesystem to use it!

Re:will they then

[pilgrim23]

Wasn't this all fought out 20 years ago over BBSs?

What about..

[SillySnake]

Didn't the church of Scientology threaten to sue once about stuff that was posted in the comment section? Obviously it has nothing to do with libel.. but might the same hold true based on the "within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board" ?

Re:will they then

[ivanmarsh]

I guess that depends on whether you're stating opinion or fact. Everyone is entitled to their opinion no matter how stupid it is.

None of these cases will ever go anywhere.

"I never made any claim that my blogg is a lagitimate source of factual material" case dismissed.
If it works for Fox news it should certainly work for a blog.

Sueing the posters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being as this is a "news" site, can Taco refuse to give info on his sources, aka posters? And if he does refuse to fork over his logs etc under such an exemption can that be interpreted as Slashdot now being liable?

More questions to answer?

[i_should_be_working]

What if the poster is someone that is known to be affiliated with /.? Like cowboyneal or taco. Which one started this thing anyway? Well, if the one who didn't start it or own it makes some libelous claims would /. still be off the hook?

And what's the fine line between a blog and something like Wikipedia?

Maybe TFM will have the answers. Oh wait, TFM is dotted.

Re:Let's test it out....

[Romancer]

Slashdot should script in the submit form: "My opinion is:" before each post in very tiny print.

To ensure that posters don't get sued since opinions can't be lible.

Re:will they then

[PCM2]

I guess that depends on whether you're stating opinion or fact. Everyone is entitled to their opinion no matter how stupid it is.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but they are not necessarily entitled to write it down and publish it for the whole world to read. If I say "I think George W. Bush looks like a child molester. In fact think he is a child molester" and then I go on for the next few paragraphs to talk about George W. Bush as if he molests children, speculating on the times and places where he might have had access to children to molest them, then I am begging for a lawsuit. I'd be a fool to believe that "but I told you up front that it was just my opinion" was going to save me. In the United States, the Supreme Court has pretty much rejected the "fair comment" defense for libel cases.

Re:will they then

[FLEB]

Simply saying something is an opinion doesn't make it so. An accusation of child molestation, presented as a straight statement without metaphor, is a provable right-or-wrong statement of fact.

Now, the first statement would fly-- you can legitimately think he looks like a child molester (that's something wholly dependent upon your personal perception), but you put yourself into a statement of fact when you say that he is a child molester. Granted, the "I think" tempers it a bit, but it's still shaky ground if someone were to take you up on it.

(By my own measure-- I don't know the legal opinions on the subject.)