Webmasters scored another victory in the court system recently when a Vermont judge tossed out a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman upset by comments made about her by a third party commentator.
Superior Court Judge David Howard upheld provisions set forth under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted by the US Congress in 1996, which protects providers of interactive computer services from liability for content posted by third parties.
iBrattleboro is a community news site based in Brattleboro, Vermont, and was deemed immune from liability by Judge Howard. The judge noted that interactive computer services, such as the iBrattleboro website, were different from traditional offline publications because of the speed with which content appears.
That makes regulating content a “near impossibility.” Other proponents of third party liability immunity also believe that liability would have a chilling effect on free speech. The dismissal will not immune the third party commentator, however, if the plaintiff is able to prove his or her identity along with several other factors for determining defamation.
When news of the lawsuit originally broke, iBrattleboro founders Lise LePage and Christopher Grotke gained support from online donations to their legal defense and counsel* from Harvard’s Citizen Media Law Project.
Online anonymity has proven to be at once a boon for free speech and a headache for those seeking recompense for libel and defamation claims. So far, it has been difficult to unmask defamers as the process is invasive to spark concerns about privacy and abuse of whistleblowers via litigation.
*As mentioned in the comments, this word can cause confusion in context. Legal representation and counsel was provided Jim Maxwell, not by Citizen Media Law Project. The intended connotation of the word “counsel” was meant to imply advice and guidance, not official representation. Sorry for the confusion.
