-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Important new Internet free speech decision Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:04:55 -0500 From: Paul Levy <plevy@private> To: <declan@private> I want to call your attention to today's excellent decision of the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division in Donato v. Moldow, upholding a citizen's right to host a forum for discussion of local affairs without being held liable for offensive postings made by visitors to the web site. available online at http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a5942-02.pdf. You reported on this case when it was originally brought back in 2001. This is the case involving the "Eye on Emerson" web site, created by a resident of Emerson, New Jersey to discuss local affairs in the Borough of Emerson. Several public officials sued over allegedly defamatory and certainly offensive comments posted on a bulletin board that was part of the web site. The officials sued both the anonymous posters and Moldow, the creator of the web site. After failing to obtain enforcement of a subpoena to identify the posters, because the plaintiffs refused to submit evidence to support their claims, they dismissed those claims and concentrated their efforts solely on the web site host, whom they held responsible on the ground that he had facilitated the offensive comments by creating the discussion site, and had failed to comply with plaintiffs' demands that he take down every post to which they objected, or require posters to identify themselves. In the decision released today, the Appellate Division agreed with the vast majority of courts that have addressed this question, holding that the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. section 230 protects all persons who host discussion forums, whether or not they are Internet Service Providers like AOL. The court also refused to treat the Good Samaritan provision of section 230, which precludes liability for good faith efforts to remove offensive material, as modifying the CDA's basic grant of immunity. Thus, allegations that Moldow was hostile to plaintiffs, that we was happy that plaintiffs were attacked on the bulletin board, or that he made negative some postings more readable by toning them down or that he removed praise but not criticism, all failed to undermine the claim of immunity. Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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