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| Chilling Effects Clearinghouse > Weather Reports > The Shot Heard 'Round The Blogosphere | 
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|  The Shot Heard 'Round The BlogosphereDavid E. Snyder, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic -- Boalt Hall, December 8, 2006 Abstract: Until recently, blogs seemed immune from the threat of libel lawsuits. A recent verdict in Georgia suggests that’s no longer true. For the once pugnacious community blog www.aboutforsyth.com, the truth is no longer an affirmative defense. The $50,000 verdict barely registered a blip in the traditional media. The local newswires picked up the story, as did the hometown paper in Forsyth County, Georgia, but that was about it. In blogging circles, however, the money award -- tiny by mainstream media standards -- has huge ramifications. “Jury: Webmaster Libeled Lawyer[1],” the January 27 headline in the Forsyth County News said. What the story didn’t report is that the verdict – against local political activist David Milum for libeling a lawyer online – marked the first time a jury in the United States had found a blogger guilty of libel. Long free from the chilling effects of libel law, blogs and Internet bulletin boards in recent months have been subject to dozens of libel lawsuits and other legal actions. The Media Law Resource Center reports[2] that since 2005, more than 50 lawsuits have been filed stemming from postings on blogs or Internet message boards. On October 12, a jury in Broward County, Florida awarded Sue Scheff $11.3 million in defamation damages for comments made by a woman on an Internet message board for parents. Scheff, who offers a referral service called Parents Universal Resource Services, had alleged that the defendant, Carey Bock, defamed her by calling Scheff a "crook" and "con artist." Bock, who lived in Louisiana and was displaced by Hurricane Katrina, did not show up to trial, according to the Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale. Gawker Media, the blog conglomerate which runs the popular Defamer.com and Wonkette.com websites was recently joined in an invasion-of-privacy claim against Jessica Cutler. Former U.S. Senate aide Robert Steinbuch sued Cutler after she posted a blog describing their sexual escapades. Wonkette.com cited to Cutler’s blog. Ligonier Ministries, a Florida religious broadcaster and publisher, recently asked a judge to pre-emptively silence a blogger to keep him from criticizing the organization. Judges historically have refused to grant such requests. In October, a detective in the Saline County (Arkansas) sheriff’s office sued the operator of a website which focuses on criticizing sheriff Phil Mask. The suit, filed in Arkansas state court, alleges defamation for remarks on the website calling the detective, Sandy Romeo, a “drug user.” Romeo later asked the judge for a temporary restraining order to shut the website down. As of this writing, the website, philmask.com[3], appeared to be no longer operating. Observers and legal experts say such lawsuits may just be the beginning. "It hasn't happened yet, but soon, there will be a blogger who is successfully sued and who loses his home," Robert Cox, founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, told USA Today. "That will be the shot heard round the blogosphere." One common barrier to lawsuits against bloggers is their relatively shallow pockets. Unlike The Washington Post or ABC News, most bloggers have little in the way of resources to pay damages. But that is changing, and paintiffs may be more willing to undergo the expense of hiring a lawyer if they know that the blogger (or, increasingly, the company who hired the blogger) has enough money to pay. For a plaintiff to recover in a libel lawsuit, the court must find that the statement was a false statement of fact which actually harmed the subject of that statement. For plaintiffs who are public figures, the court must find that the allegedly libelous statement was made with “actual malice,” meaning the defendant knew his statement was false, or he recklessly disregarded the falsity of the statement. For plaintiffs who are not public figures, the standard is lower: the court must find that the alleged libeler acted negligently in publishing the libelous statement. The chilling effects of such lawsuits are clear: traditional media companies routinely hire lawyers to review stories before they are published to ferret out potentially libelous statements. Critics say such journalism gets watered down during this pre-publication review process, and the reticence to publish explosive claims is one of the reasons, perhaps, that blogs have become a popular alternative to the mainstream media. They don’t seem so stodgy. Will the blogosphere become timid and stodgy as a result of libel’s chill? If the local fallout from the Georgia lawsuit is any indication, the answer is yes. On aboutforsyth.com[4], the website where Milum, the Georgia activist, posted his libelous claims, the website’s new administrator recently posted a series of new rules. Among them are restrictions on publishing material critical of dead people – who in most states cannot be libeled – and criticisms of “private citizens” -- even if those criticisms are grounded in fact. In the United States, truth is generally an affirmative defense for libel. But not on the new aboutforsyth.com. “Public figures can be fair game” for attacks, the new administrator writes. “But start talking trash about private citizens, children, or dead people and you will get booted, even if what you say may be factually true.” [1]http://www.forsythnews.com/news/stories/20060129/localnews/61856.shtml
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