Wikipedia held to a different standard than newspapers?
Someone needs to explain this to me:
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, specifically states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker.” That legalese means that, unlike print and broadcast companies, online service providers cannot be sued for disseminating defamatory attacks on citizens posted by others.
Recent low-profile court decisions document that Congress effectively has barred defamation in cyberspace.
Say what?
If I write a malicious and untrue statement about someone and post it to Wikipedia and in a newspaper’s classified ads, only the newspaper would get in trouble. How does that make sense? Moreover, if it’s going to remain the law of the land, couldn’t libellous publications simply move fully online, post a disclaimer that they don’t guarantee the 100 percent accuracy of their articles and be able to defame freely from then on?
This seems wacky and short-sighted at best.
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Oh, yeah. Look for all sorts of defamatory reports to start appearing
on my employers’ website (well, at least MORE defamatory reports than usually
appear) all in the name of good, clean Communications Decency Act fun.
Comment by Todd — December 6, 2005 @ 13:15