Calif.
court ruling seeks to protect bloggers, Web publishers
C/Net ^ |
November 20, 2006, 2:39 PM PST | By Anne Broache
Good news for Christian websites and sites
hosting Christian websites – their free speech is now being written into law.
In a victory for bloggers,
newsgroup participants and other Web publishers, the California Supreme Court
ruled Monday that individual Internet users cannot be held liable for
republishing defamatory statements written by others.
The unanimous ruling appears to
be the first to make clear that a 1996 law called the Communications Decency
Act protects not only providers, but also users of online services who
redistribute content. Earlier court rulings had established that Section 230 of
that statute shields companies such as AOL and eBay from such liability,
provided that they make good faith efforts to restrict access to material that
could be considered "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively
violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable."
By passing that law, Congress
"has comprehensively immunized republication by individual Internet
users," intending "to protect online freedom of expression and to
encourage self-regulation," the justices concluded in their majority
opinion (click for PDF) penned by Associate Justice Carol Corrigan.
The justices acknowledged that
"recognizing broad immunity for defamatory republications on the Internet
has some troubling consequences." But unless Congress revises the law,
anyone who claims to be defamed by an Internet posting may seek damages only
from the "original source of the statement," they wrote.
That protection should not
extend, however, to users who conspire with the originators of libelous
content, Associate Justice Carlos Moreno wrote in a concurring opinion.
"One engaged in a tortious
conspiracy with the original information content provider is hardly one of the
neutral 'intermediaries' that Congress intended to absolve of liability,"
he wrote, adding that he did not believe that sort of activity took place in
the case at hand.
The case dates back to 2000,
when two doctors who operated Web sites devoted to exposing health frauds sued
Ilena Rosenthal, director of a foundation for women and founder of a decade-old
Internet newsgroup for women who have had problems with breast implants.
Dr. Stephen Barrett, who runs
the site Quackwatch, and Dr. Timothy Polevoy accused Rosenthal and others of
committing libel "by maliciously distributing defamatory statements in
e-mails and Internet postings, impugning plaintiffs' character and competence
and disparaging their efforts to combat fraud," according to the state
Supreme Court opinion. In particular, Rosenthal had republished on two
newsgroups a report by another author who accused Polevoy of stalking a
Canadian radio producer.
A California state court sided
with Rosenthal, but an appeals court determined that Rosenthal should be held
liable as a "distributor" of the allegedly defamatory information.
In the offline world, common law
makes a distinction between "publishers," such as newspapers and
books, and "distributors," such as newspaper vendors and book
sellers. Distributors are considered liable only if they were given notice of a
defamatory statement in their merchandise.
But transferring such
distinctions to the online world could chill free speech, the state Supreme
Court ruled. "The volume and range of Internet communications make the
'heckler's veto' a real threat under the Court of Appeal's holding," the
justices wrote.
The high court said it based its
decision on a string of earlier cases that immunized online service providers.
Perhaps most famously, federal courts found AOL was not liable in a suit first
brought in April 1996 by a man named Kenneth Zeran, who claimed the company did
not act fast enough to remove defamatory postings directed at him. The same
provision of the law also led courts to side with eBay in 2001 amid claims that
the online auctioneer should have been doing more to vet the authenticity of
sports memorabilia offered by its sellers.
Rosenthal's position had drawn
supporting briefs from Internet service providers, law professors and advocacy
groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier
Foundation.
EFF attorney Lee Tien, who
co-authored the San Francisco-based group's 2004 brief, applauded the ruling,
but said the case never should have had to reach the state Supreme Court level.
"It's so patently obvious
that users are protected by the plain language and policy of 230," he said
in an e-mail interview.