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Technorati Ranked Top 100 Blogger To Testify About Comment Made On His Blog
shoemoney.com — The owner of shoemoney.com currently ranked #66 on technorati's most popular blogs on the internet has been called to testify over comments made on his blog. Evidently one reader is suing another after being slandered on the popular blog. Is this going to be a landmark case or is there already case law pertaining to slander in blog comments ?
mikelowery- 531 diggs
- digg it
- markus941, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41Shoemoney wears Walmart shoes!
Ok, now, can shoemoney sue me for saying such libelous and disgusting things about his footwear? Can the dirty attorneys at Walmart sue me for implying their shoes are disgusting? Can somebody sue Digg for my calling Walmart attorneys dirty? Yay! Everybody sue!- ravenofwinter, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12No, but you can sue more saying that you wear shoes made from the skins of the babies you killed together with Rush Limbaugh and George W. Bush while you were out hunting in New Orleans after Katrina.
- podgey22, on 10/12/2007, -10/+20Have you not heard of America? They'll sue anything that hasn't been screwed down... And if it is, they'll sue the screws...
- ZaNkY, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Imagine if every time someone said "noob" they could be prosecuted....
I think this case will just blow over, the Internet is like one HUGE playground. If someone says something mean to you, go to some other "part" of the playground. If that same person FOLLOWS you and then says something mean to you again, ok then there's a start for harassment and maybe a lawsuit (with a consistent pattern of harassment already in place). But not over one thing someone said once.... - lakawak, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6Good job podgey...let's bring up that same ***** again.
You do know that the US is not even CLOSE to the top of the list of most lawsuits per capital, don't you? Not even close. - hriwo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You can sue anyone for anything, but it doesn't mean you will win.
- benshariff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I would like to retract my comments and apologize to the AOL Corporation, Microsoft Bob, The Geek Squad, Cue-Cat , Anyone on MySpace with pretty ponies on their page, and Church's Chicken. Any other complaints I am going to have to attribute it to my unsecured Wi-Fi connection as it could not have been me.
- drawk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@lakawak:
Capita. (minus the 'l') - Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3I completely support this.
I have been the victim of damaging things being said regarding myself online. I am not talking about "I think he's a jerk" or "boy, he stinks like cheese". I'm talking about things that offend me to think about inventing about *anyone*. They have been invented by two groups of people. Former members of my site who were banned for misbehaving and harassing or defrauding my other members -- or by my competitors.
The problem is, there is nothing I can do about it. Presuming anything could reasonably be done about it, the amount of time involved in gathering and documenting things and the legal expertise and representation involved is so prohibitive that only wealthy people and corporations can truly afford to defend their reputations from personally and professionally harmful malicious statements. - Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"Imagine if every time someone said "noob" they could be prosecuted...."
You apparently don't understand what libel or slander is. Nobody cares if you say "noob". But if you said "I know for a fact that John Smith is a child molestor" or "I know for a fact that Jenny Harrold used to be a man before a sex operation" or any other number of things. In the modern digital world and the google-searching employment world (and dating world for that matter), completely invented slander regarding an individual can affect them to a devistating point.
You wouldn't tolerate it in meatspace and it shouldn't be tolerated online. In fact, it is worse. If I live on Kevin Rose's block and spread a rumor to his neighbors about him, the extend of damage will probably be limited to nobody in the neighborhood trusting him or wanting to get to know him or be around him. On the internet, the same comments and lies about him could lead to people leaving his site (business), employers refusing to hire him, advertisers refusing to pay for advertisement with him and even future dates refusing to follow through on a date with him (since some of us google dates before we actually invest much time with them).
So I would say the online aspect of libel and slander is long overdue for some serious inspection. - ZaNkY, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Seumas
You misunderstand me, I completely agree with you, but I'm just saying that if people start suing for slander on the net, it's only a matter of time before the justice system gets BLOATED with nonsense full of "n00b" and "RTFA"/ "RTFM" and "lus33r!!!" and other random crap.
The Internet is full of mean and evil people. It's an essential SKILL to survive to be able to navigate around these people.
- ravenofwinter, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12No, but you can sue more saying that you wear shoes made from the skins of the babies you killed together with Rush Limbaugh and George W. Bush while you were out hunting in New Orleans after Katrina.
- DubbleA, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3These might be interesting reads to go along with this story:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/04/18/043121.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3644610.stm - Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0You can sue for online harrassment not slander. If there was a law suit for every slander case the justice system would be filled with nonsense lawsuits and backup real criminal lawsuits.
- heavensblade23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Libel/Slander is a civil offense. It wouldn't affect criminal cases.
- Tempo12, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5You can't just make up random crap and not expect to get sued.
http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/09/02/shoemoney-libel/- Tempo12, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Shoemoneys libel/BS, that he addmited to.
http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/05/08/plentyoffish-marketing-101-when-all-else-fails-just-lie/
- Tempo12, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Shoemoneys libel/BS, that he addmited to.
- therernospoons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Dude, look at how much he made from adsense:
http://www.shoemoney.com/gallery/d/5222-2/adsensecheck.jpg
Who needs a job with that kind of income! - swenzel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Linkbait 101:
1. Sue Google / M$ or Yahoo
2. Get sued from Google
3. Let your blog friends sue each other and testify.
Good luck shoemoney- lakawak, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Awww...How CLEVER! You used a DOLLAR SIGN instead of an S. Did you come up with that by yourself?
- christiancadeo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I am not saying that it is a linkbait effort as I actully read his blog and that guys is always on the up and up (if that makes sense), but nevertheless it would of been a pretty smart effort at linkbait if I say so myself.
- HanSolo69, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13most confusing headline. ever.
- benc11, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0I think that the case should be thrown out right away under the first amendment. What's next, we can sue over the blog being up itself.
- 15thPD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Libel is the correct term, not slander. Slander is spoken, libel is written.
- compuXP, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Dude, I know this guy,... he's pretty amazing. He'll figure it out ;)
- gd007, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4i want to sue somebody!
- alfredn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5doesnt mean youll win :).
- vernsan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So basically, someone posted a comment on a topic which was put up. Later the comment which was posted was somehow used to "slander" against another site. The owner of the site read the comment and sued. That is very irrational, the other guy could of asked the site owner to remove a comment, delete the topic, possibly many other things. Did the site owner make the slander comment or did a fellow site member do that?
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wrong. The poster of the comment got sued; the owner of the blog is being called to testify as a *WITNESS,* presumably of the fact that such a comment was made to his blog.
It has already been held by US courts that the owner of a forum or message board cannot be held liable for postings made by 3rd parties, and the application to blogs is fairly straitforward: while the owner can be liable for things said in *his* blog postings and comment postings, comment postings by 3rd parties not affiliated with the blog (ie, the general public) will not get him in trouble. - aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@fatdog789:
"It has already been held by US courts that the owner of a forum or message board cannot be held liable for postings made by 3rd parties"
Source for this?
-T - vernsan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks for clarifying.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wrong. The poster of the comment got sued; the owner of the blog is being called to testify as a *WITNESS,* presumably of the fact that such a comment was made to his blog.
- madpie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The California Supreme Court will actually be hearing oral argument on Tuesday (9/5) in San Francisco in a case called Barrett v. Rosenthal, which is all about online defamation. Some background on that case and other related cases on this issue is here.
Edit: I guess the link didn't work, but it is: http://www.phillipsnizer.com/library/cases/lib_case331.cfm- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Why are people modding this down? This is directly related to the issue at hand.
Key point of the linked article:
Content providers (ie, bloggers) are responsible for 3rd party postings (ie, comments) if the know (ie, have been made aware) that such material is factually incorrect (libelous or slanderous, take your pick) and post it anyway or do not remove it.
In other words, if someone tells you that a comment made on your blog is slanderous to them, you have to check it out; you are only free from liability IF the comment is factually true. If you can't prove that's its true, it's best to remove it to avoid any headaches. - uForgot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I am not a lawyer, but I was under the impression you had to prove that the person who committed slander/libel KNEW they were intentionally lying, which is one reason why these cases are so hard to win.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Why are people modding this down? This is directly related to the issue at hand.
- eplanit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2What is the purpose of blogs if we can't rant or rave, and say what we want without fear of being sued? Lame.
- johndi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can rant and rave all you want. As long as you present it as opinion and not fact you're fairly safe. That's why name calling like 'noob' isn't a big deal. The minute you start making accusations it's a whole new game.
It appears like this guy may be stealing profiles would be fine.
He is stealing profiles is not.
- johndi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can rant and rave all you want. As long as you present it as opinion and not fact you're fairly safe. That's why name calling like 'noob' isn't a big deal. The minute you start making accusations it's a whole new game.
- Arancaytar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2He's lucky the reader didn't sue him instead of the other commenter. When you have enough issues to sue over an insult (and suing costs money and time), you probably don't much care where it lands.
In any case, it does add a new dimension to how you handle free speech on your blog. Cases like this have hounded the online forum of the German tech news portal Heise for some time, where the publishing house that owns it has been sued for not moderating its users quickly enough. Eventually a court decided that ALL posts on a public forum have to be pre-screened before publication, without regard for the logistic problems.- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No, he's not lucky, since he's not liable for the comment to begin with, and an attempt by the reader to sue him would at the very least result in said reader recouping his legal costs, assuming the reader's lawyer would even take up that issue.
This does not add anything to free speech on a blog. It doesn't take anything away. Euro laws on free speech are different, and cannot be compared to American laws, which govern this case.
On a final note, libel and slander have never been protected by the 1st Amendment because they are factually false statements. - aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Hmm, well, actually maybe something other than luck was at work. Supposedly the US has a law which holds blameless the infrastructure people. In other words, you can't sue the phone company if someone says something horrible over a phone. You can't sue an ISP if someone posts something awful on Usenet. And you (supposedly) can't sue a site admin if someone posts something awful on a blog/forum/wiki/whatever.
Supposedly (again), the trick is that the infrastructure people cannot be monitoring everything. If they do, then it is presumed that they approved the posting, and can be held liable. But if a site has too much traffic to be monitored (Shoemoney definitely qualifies) then a system is in place that allows people to make "takedown notices" that challenge a particular post. The site admin does have to respond to those, but just to get to that point usually involves a lawyer.
I don't remember more than this. Can somone tell me how close to the mark I am? Does anyone recall which law it is that provides this system for takedowns & protection of infrastructure people? Am I appying it correctly, or is it not as much protection as I remember?
-Tony - ssclafani, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2aboyd, you are thinking of the The Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, which says that ISPs can't be held responsible for what their users say while on their networks. This has successfully been used in cases against AOL and Yahoo and other big ISPs, but whether it applies to blogs is another question.
One of the first cases to test the act:
http://news.com.com/AOL+cleared+in+Drudge+libel+case/2100-1023_3-210484.html - aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ssclafani, thanks for that! I gave you a digg.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No, he's not lucky, since he's not liable for the comment to begin with, and an attempt by the reader to sue him would at the very least result in said reader recouping his legal costs, assuming the reader's lawyer would even take up that issue.
- will42, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This looks like the blog post in question: http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/05/08/plentyoffish-marketing-101-when-all-else-fails-just-lie/
From reading that it seems as though the person suing - the owner of a dating website - is doing so because of the content of a blog post, not the comments. From the poster there we get the bullish:
"Hey jackass this is my personal blog and those are my opinions.
Do you promise to sue me or is this more of your bs ?"
And opinion of course doesn't mean it's not libelous.- ZenFu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8WTF? This digg submission's obviously talking about this post by Shawn Mattson.
Comment posted in it's entirety (sorry, there was no permalink on the site):
Comment by Shawn Mattson
2006-07-09 16:27:53
To Markus Frind of Canada, owner of Plentyoffish.com:
Re: your unfair termination of my membership and your anti-male,
discriminatory, fraudulent and unlawful business model.
Why did you delete my profile and terminate my membership on July 3, 2006 at
8:57 PM?
You did so without any notice or explanation. In fact, you deceived me as to
the reason, resulting in my wasting a lot of my time. Consequently, the next
day, I spent six hours attempting to log on. At first, I assumed your site
was down. Then, I adjusted my browser privacy setting as your automated
notice suggested (this was your deception). When that didn’t work, I
e-mailed my buddy to see whether he could log on. He was able to do so.
Then, I got suspicious, so I searched for my own profile and found that you
had deleted it. Such a delayed search was the only way I could find out!
The next day, I attempted to register another profile, several times, using
three new usernames. Each of them worked for less than an hour, but I did
not get the administrative deletion message when I searched for each of
those names after they had been deleted. All I got was a deadend, without
any explanation. The first thing I did with the first two new profiles was
to contact all the people I had been commmunicating with, to explaine what
had happened, so I wouldn’t leave them hanging. But, obviously, none of them
got my note because my e-mail was automatically deleted with my profile,
immediately after I sent it.
Consequently, you left about a dozen of my friends hanging, in addition to
many more whom I had contacted for the first time. You therefore damaged
many relationships, frustrated many people, and destroyed the investment we
had made in our relationships, and destroyed the investment of my time I had
made in writing my profile and searching for prospects.
On or about July 4, 2006, I e-mailed your Tech. Support Dept., asking them
why I had been terminated. I have not received any response. I saw no other
recourse posted on your website at that time.
You owe me and my friends better treatment than this. You owe the People of
the United States better treatment. You brag on your website that you are
the largest free dating website, and that you rank #5 overall. Therefore,
you have the responsibility to treat users fairly and to give them proper
notice and explanation of membership termination, because such termination
limits their alternatives to the extent that you brag about, yourself. As
you should know, a provider in a monopoly position, such as yourself, has a
special duty and responsibility to the public.
Your actions are unfair, irresponsible, reckless and monopolistic.
It appears that your business model exploits certain dynamics that drive
your business, to the extreme extent that you unfairly and unlawfully
discriminate against male members to maximize the number of female members
and your advertising revenue. This business is driven by ads posted by
female members, which attract men who respond to initiate contact. Females
initiate only a small fraction of contacts, as you know from your own
statistics. Such facts mirror the real world outside of the Internet.
Consequently, you do anything you can to retain female members to the extent
that you pander to them by terminating male members whenever they get a
certain minimum number of complaints from females, regardless of the merit
of the complaints. However, it’s obvious that you don’t do the same for
complaints by males, as indicated by your unresponsiveness to my complaints
about females who have obviously fraudulent or absurd ads. Some of those ads
are duplicates (they even log on to both profiles in rapid succession). Some
of them state absurdly wide or narrow age ranges. Some are generally absurd
and frivolous. Some are masseuses looking for business. Some are
18-year-olds looking for 55-year-old sugardaddies. Some are obviously
prostitutes. Many of them misstate their height (e.g., they list their
height at 6′, but say they are 5′5″ in their description). I’ve notified you
of many such ads, but you have failed to respond to any of my complaints.
It appears that you program your computers to automatically terminate male
members whenever a minimum number of female members complain, regardless of
the merit of the complaint. In my case, you terminated me at 8:57 PM (your
time) on Tuesday night, July 3, 2006 during a 4th of July weekend. I doubt
anyone was working at POF then, so it appears this process was done
automatically by computer.
I understand that you run this website with only two employees: you and your
wife. But such a low-cost business model is no excuse to discriminate
against male members and to deny them due process. If you don’t have the
resources to handle complaints fairly, you should simply advise complainants
to block mail from members they don’t like, as Matchdoctor.com does.
Complainants don’t have to read mail or profiles they don’t like. As soon as
they read something they don’t like, they need only move on to the next one.
Therefore, terminating male members, based merely upon the number of
popularity votes by female members, is unnecessarily retaliatory,
contemptuous, discriminatory and undemocratic. And it’s unlawful.
You break the law by discriminating against males, defrauding males, and by
knowingly and intentionally allowing fraudulent
ads of female members to remain posted.
You unnecessarily destroy relationships and destroy the investment of time
male members have made in your website. Ironically, you also destroy
investments your female members have made in relationships with male
members. Their male friends just suddenly disappear, without explanation.
You just leave them hanging. They are frustrated and saddened, and the men
appear to have abandoned them, without explanation. That’s de facto
defamation against male members.
And, obviously, your allegation that only 0.5% of your members are
terminated is false, given the circumstances of my termination. I used no
obscene language, nor did I post an obscene profile. And you can’t show why
my profile or written statements are unlawful. Therefore, if you terminate
men like me, you must terminate a much higher % of male members than you
state you do. That’s fraud, too.
And my style of communicating is nothing like the widespread unethical,
sexist, anti-social, psychotic, irrational behavior I have observed among
your female members. And those are the people who seek to retaliate against
men by clicking on the “abuse” button.
Your Terms of Use are stated so vaguely that they would allow you to
arbitrarily terminate any member for any reason. For example, anyone might
interpret any statement as “mean” or “offensive.” Anytime anyone expresses
an opinion about anything, someone will be offended.
The fact that the largest free dating website in the U.S. is allowed to post
and execute such sloppy, primitive, ignorant and unlawful Terms of Use is a
travesty.
The fact that you don’t charge a membership fee is irrelevant. You
monopolize your market, and you deny arbitrarily terminated male members any
viable alternative. You have already put such alternatives out of business,
or you have taken so much market share from them that they aren’t viable
alternatives. Ironically, you created your own argument against your
actions.
In addition to the above violations, you perpetrate racketeering, in
violation of U.S. Federal RICO Statutes.
Two of your competitors, Yahoo and Match.com are being sued by many parties
for perpetrating violations of law similar to yours.
Therefore, if you fail to reinstate my membership, by Wednesday, July 12,
2006, I will take the following legal action against you:
I will file complaints with the following government agencies:
1. All 50 U.S. State Attorneys General
2. The U.S. Attorney of Phoenix, AZ.
3. Various government agencies in Canada
4. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission
5. The U.S. Dept. of Justice.
6. The FBI.
Also, I will solicit similarly terminated former male members to participate
in a class-action lawsuit against you. I will be using the same attorneys
who are suing your competitors.
Time is of the essence. I am losing friends and romantic opportunities as
you read this, and my damages continue to mount.
Sincerely,
Shawn Mattson, XWallstreeter - ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No it's not... It's talking about the shoemoney guy who said that plentyoffish was stealing female profiles from other sites.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm assuming this is the guy getting sued?
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Will42, ZenFu is right (I think). We don't actually know, because Shoemoney is apparently under a gag order or at least his lawyer wants him to keep mum.
But Shoemoney is not getting sued for his blog entry. Shoemoney himself makes that clear. He's getting a subpoena to appear in court over two commenters suing each other. I suspect that Shawn Mattson is getting sued by the plentyoffish.com people. But I suppose it could also be the other way around, as Shawn was clearly hoping to get into a legal fight (aaaaaannnd got his wish).
(My guess is that Shawn was just blowing off steam, but his charges of racketeering & monopolistic practices are possibly so disconnected from reality that the plentyoffish.com lawyers decided it qualified as libel. However, none of us know the truth at this point.) - will42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Okay, that seems to be how things are. The only really unusual thing in all of this is that the legal challenge has been made there in the comments - why not through email? It's not that much an internet-speech issue in all.
- ZenFu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8WTF? This digg submission's obviously talking about this post by Shawn Mattson.
- ddn3d, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Wow, a little pissed that your account got banned buddy?
- jpfinch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Shoemoney is a shameless SEO spammer - I shed no tears if he has to go to court.
- shoemoney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I prefer the term High Volume Search Engine Optimizer!
- mikeabundo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My advice? Sit back and enjoy the publicity.
- vagabond0101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How about slander in online chat rooms?
- Sukino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They made adblock for a reason is all I have to say.
- MarkHarrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A retired lawyer friend once told me two great truths about being sued:
1: It is always better to be the person with the money being sued, than the person without money trying to sue.
2: Only ever sue people with money.
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