A few weeks ago I blogged about a UK internet libel decision. The defendent in that case, Tracy Williams, now appears to have commented on the original post . I did a quick traceroute on the IP address and it… Continue Reading
I keep getting wheeled out in front of various audiences to talk about blogging so I figured it was about time I did a bit of digging around to see what academics are saying about it. Here are the gems… Continue Reading
Craig Newmark started Craigslist.org over 11 years ago. Since that time, it’s emerged, almost by stealth, to become one of the 10 busiest websites on the internet. Craigslist’s 10 million unique users a month post 5 million, generating 2.5 billion… Continue Reading
A chatroom spat turned expensive for Tracy Williams, a college lecturer from Oldham, Greater Manchester, after she lost a libel case brought against her by Michael Keith-Smith in the High Court. The Court heard that Williams described Keith-Smith as "lard… Continue Reading
A sheriff’s deputy in Manatee County, Florida is reportedly sueing an unnamed message board user (named "Jane Doe" in the suit) for libel. The deputy alleges that she was the victim of sex-related gossip that brought her into "public scandal… Continue Reading
Because the internet is a global network, accessible anywhere, one of the questions I often hear when training online community hosts and moderators is "which country’s libel laws apply?". The BBC World Service is a perfect example of how complicated… Continue Reading
A California based technology company, Juniper Networks, is taking a group of anonymous message board users to court. The case, filed by in Santa Clara on December 14, claims that ten anonymous users, which it names as “Does 1-10” collectively,… Continue Reading
According to Jennifer Granick, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University Law School (quoted here), Wikipedia is unlikely to attract legal liability for libel. This is because the act, in Granick’s interpretation, protects internet services… Continue Reading
Last week I wrote that a court in British Columbia, Canada worryingly asserted jurisdiction over the alleged libel of a Canadian man by a US based newspaper website. Now the High Court in Canada has gone against this ruling and… Continue Reading
What happens when a newspaper based in America posts on their website a potentially defamatory article about someone in another country? They get sued in that other country… GlobeandMail.com reports that the Supreme Court of British Columbia has asserted jurisdiction… Continue Reading