Press

Blogger beware: Postings can lead to lawsuits
A false sense of Internet security can mean legal quagmires for critics who are careless about facts.
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau] 8/23/10

The Internet has allowed tens of millions of Americans to be published writers. But it also has led to a surge in lawsuits from those who say they were hurt, defamed or threatened by what they read, according to groups that track media lawsuits.

"It was probably inevitable, but we have seen a steady growth in litigation over content on the Internet," said Sandra Baron, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York.

Although bloggers may have a free-speech right to say what they want online, courts have found that they are not protected from being sued for their comments, even if they are posted anonymously.

Some postings have even led to criminal charges.

Hal Turner, a right-wing blogger from New Jersey, faces up to 10 years in prison for posting a comment that three Chicago judges "deserve to be killed" for having rejected a 2nd Amendment challenge to the city's handgun ban in 2009. Turner, who also ran his own Web-based radio show, thought it "was political trash talk," his lawyer said. But this month a jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., convicted him of threatening the lives of the judges on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In western Pennsylvania, a judge recently ruled a community website must identify the Internet address of individuals who posted comments calling a township official a "jerk" who put money from the taxpayers in "his pocket." The official also owned a used car dealership, and one commenter called his cars "junk." The official sued for defamation, saying the comments were false and damaged his reputation.

In April, a North Carolina county official won a similar ruling after some anonymous bloggers on a local website called him a slumlord.

"Most people have no idea of the liability they face when they publish something online," said Eric Goldman, who teaches Internet law at Santa Clara University. "A whole new generation can publish now, but they don't understand the legal dangers they could face. People are shocked to learn they can be sued for posting something that says, 'My dentist stinks.' "

Under federal law, websites generally are not liable for comments posted by outsiders. They can, however, be forced to reveal the poster's identity if the post includes false information presented as fact.

Calling someone a "jerk" and a "buffoon" may be safe from a lawsuit because it states an opinion. Saying he wrongly "pocketed" public money could lead to a defamation claim because it asserts something as a fact.

"A lot of people don't know how easy it is to track them down" once a lawsuit is filed, said Sara J. Rose, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer in Pittsburgh.

The Supreme Court has said that the 1st Amendment's protection for the freedom of speech includes the right to publish "anonymous" pamphlets. But recently, judges have been saying that online speakers do not always have a right to remain anonymous.

Last month, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Nevada judge's order requiring the disclosure of the identity of three people accused of conducting an "Internet smear campaign via anonymous postings" against Quixtar, the successor to the well-known Amway Corp.

"The right to speak, whether anonymously or otherwise, is not unlimited," wrote Judge Margaret McKeown.

Quixtar had sued, contending the postings were damaging to its business. The judge who first ordered the disclosure said the Internet had "great potential for irresponsible, malicious and harmful communication." Moreover, the "speed and power of Internet technology makes it difficult for the truth to 'catch up to the lie,' " he wrote.

Media law experts say lawsuits over Internet postings are hard to track because many of them arise from local disputes. They rarely result in large verdicts or lengthy appeals to high courts.

Goldman, the Santa Clara professor, describes these cases as the "thin-skinned plaintiff versus the griper." They begin with someone who goes online to complain, perhaps about a restaurant, a contractor, a store, a former boss or a public official. Sometimes, one person's complaint prompts others to vent with even sharper, harsher complaints.

"There's a false sense of safety on the Internet," said Kimberley Isbell, a lawyer for the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University. "If you think you can be anonymous, you may not exercise the same judgment" before posting a comment, she said.

Not surprisingly, the target of the online complaints may think he or she has no choice but to take legal action if the comments are false and malicious.

"These can be life-changing lawsuits. They can go on for years and cost enormous amounts in legal fees," Goldman said.

He is particularly concerned about teenagers and what they post online. "Teenagers do what you might expect. They say things they shouldn't say. They do stupid things," he said. "We don't have a legal standard for defamation that excuses kids."

Media law experts repeat the advice that bloggers and e-mailers need to think twice before sending a message.

"The first thing people need to realize, they can be held accountable for what they say online," Baron said. "Before you speak ill of anyone online, you should think hard before pressing the 'send' button."
 

[SOURCE: The New York Times, AUTHOR: Kirk Semple] 7/30/10

Police officers patrolling by foot, car and helicopter have turned Port Richmond Avenue, a busy commercial strip on Staten Island, into something like an armed encampment. Reporters have descended en masse. Community leaders dash from crisis meeting to crisis meeting.

A spate of attacks in the past four months on Mexican immigrants has upended Port Richmond, a working-class neighborhood on the borough’s north shore that is more accustomed to being ignored.

But amid the show of force by the Police Department, which deployed teams of officers to the area this week in what it described as a temporary move to protect residents and defuse tensions, local leaders are taking a longer view.

“The question is, what happens when everybody pulls up the tents and leaves?” said the Rev. Terry Troia, an activist and Staten Island native who has been at the center of the hour-by-hour civic response to the unrest.

This is not the first time Latinos in Port Richmond have been victimized in bias attacks. Ms. Troia, executive director of Project Hospitality, an interfaith organization that serves the poor of Staten Island, said the violence dates back to 2003. In one attack, a Mexican immigrant who worked as a cook at an IHOP restaurant was killed by three assailants in 2006, according to local activists and the Mexican Consulate in New York.

Some of those earlier episodes attracted news coverage, but then the neighborhood fell back into its usual fraught rhythms. Now its Mexican population, Ms. Troia said, is particularly concerned about what might happen next. “They’re worried that as soon as the police leave, they’re going to be set upon,” she said.

The Rev. Dr. Tony Baker, pastor of St. Philip’s Baptist Church in the neighborhood’s heart, said the attacks pointed to deep-seated problems. “I think we’ve gone to sleep on the conditions we find ourselves in,” he said. “And we woke up in the midst of a racial war.”

The police said Friday that nine men — all of them Mexican immigrants — had been attacked since early April, all by young black men. Six suspects have been arrested in connection with three of the beatings, but a grand jury turned down prosecutors’ requests to indict them on hate-crime charges. Two men have pleaded guilty to robbery in two of the cases; the third case is pending.

The most recent attack was on July 23. Fidel González, a 31-year-old Mexican immigrant walking home after playing soccer in a park, was set upon by several men yelling anti-Mexican epithets, the police said. The men punched Mr. González and hit him with a scooter, breaking his jaw and cutting open his head, then stole his backpack, which contained an iPod and two cellphones, the police said.

On Tuesday night, after appeals by the consulate and local leaders, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly announced he was sending an emergency contingent to Port Richmond, including about 130 additional officers, a 15-member hate crimes investigative team, horse patrols, helicopter flyovers and mobile observation towers at key intersections.

Mexico’s consul general, Rúben Beltrán, sent a representative on Monday to set up a neighborhood office and directly assist the Mexican population. The representative drives around in a car emblazoned with the phone number for a 24-hour, toll-free hot line and a message in Spanish that begins, “Mexican, know your rights.”

Since the representative arrived, several more Mexicans have told consulate officials that they, too, were victims of attacks but had been too fearful of deportation or retribution to come forward sooner, consulate officials said.

“There are all kinds of beatings that aren’t recorded,” Ms. Troia said. “People talk casually about this: ‘Oh, I got a dislocated shoulder’; ‘I lost my eye.’ ”

Civic leaders and police officials say they are exploring many possible reasons for the violence: anti-immigrant fervor, racism, gangs, the boredom of idle youth during the summer, joblessness, overcrowding and even the notion that attacking Latinos acquired a cachet in the neighborhood this year, prompting copycat assaults. But in the past few days, all conversations about motive have eventually turned to a dynamic familiar to many neighborhoods in New York: demographic change.

In the mid-20th century, Port Richmond was heavily populated with Eastern European Jews and Irish immigrants, who owned many of the businesses along Port Richmond Avenue. But after the Staten Island Mall opened in 1973, stores closed, property values fell and many longtime residents moved away.

Blacks became the dominant population in the 1980s and ’90s, but the number of Latinos also grew. After 9/11 and the imposition of tougher immigration and travel rules that impeded the flow of migrant laborers around the country and across borders, the Mexican population planted deeper roots in Port Richmond and grew quickly.

In 1990, according to census statistics, 950 people of Mexican descent lived in the 120th Police Precinct, which includes Port Richmond. By 2008, that number had grown to 8,400. Before 9/11, there were only three Mexican-owned businesses in Port Richmond, Ms. Troia said; now there are more than 50.

The student body of Public School 20, once mostly black, is now nearly all Latino and predominantly Mexican.

That growth among Mexicans has unsettled members of some other minority groups, including Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, and especially blacks, many residents say. Black religious leaders and community activists say they often hear constituents complain that Mexicans and other Latinos have taken jobs that should have been theirs. “That’s a conversation that’s been going on,” Dr. Baker said. But, he added, some who have complained “are not going out to get jobs.”

Rogelio Vasquez, 48, the victim in one case that has been resolved, said he feared that he might be attacked again for cooperating with the authorities. Still, he said he harbored no ill will toward his assailants; the attacks, he said, were “the errors of young people.”

Port Richmond’s leaders are searching for solutions. Some want to address the lack of community resources, including jobs, housing and recreation. Others are looking for ways to bridge racial, cultural and even generational divides through initiatives like a gathering of mothers from different ethnic groups, or a midnight basketball league.

“What it calls for is work,” Dr. Baker said. “The Latino community, the African-American community, the Caucasian community, coming together and saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

Al Baker contributed reporting.
 

To be plain, NHMC has simply asked the FCC to study hate speech in media and whether or not it may lead to violence. Nothing more and nothing less. It is completely appropriate to ask the FCC to conduct such a study, as the agency has a history of examining the role of media in society. There is no doubt that the issue of hate speech may cause uncomfortable conversations for all parties involved, but that fact alone should not foreclose the discussion – indeed having the discussion is the very essence of what the First Amendment is all about. 

[SOURCE: Tech Reviews, AUTHOR: arstechnica] 6/1/10

Over thirty organizations want the Federal Communications Commission to open up a probe on “hate speech” and “misinformation” in media. “Hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television programs masquerading as ‘news’,” they wrote to the FCC earlier this month.

As for the Internet, it “gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than before,” they charge. “Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye.”

The groups who want this new proceeding include Free Press, the Media Access Project, Common Cause, the Prometheus Radio Project, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Their statement, filed in the Commission’s Future of Media proceeding, comes in support of a petition to the agency submitted over a year ago by the National Hispanic Media Coalition.... Full article.