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A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

latimes.com

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Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#81

Post by morgante »

lsaferite wrote: post #80
morgante wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that's putting Yelp into the position of censoring content. If the court thinks that a review is defamatory, they should just order the reviewer to take it down. No need to involve Yelp at all.

You say that like Yelp doesn't already self-censor to suit it's business needs.

That's completely orthogonal.

Yelp is not required to run a neutral public forum—they can institute whatever policies they want. The problem is when the government forces censorship, not when private companies have their own policies on what they'll host.

Removing content from your own site is not censorship.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#82

Post by lsaferite »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #23
kjksf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get that from? The article says that Yelp has been ordered by a judge to remove a few posts that have been found libelous. Yelp is refusing. Nowhere does it say that Yelp was "held accountable" for anything. It's also not a case of prior restraint since it happened after a trial and a verdict. The sky is not falling.

> The article says that Yelp has been ordered by a judge to remove a few posts that have been found libelous. Yelp is refusing. Yelp was not a party to the case. > It's also not a case of prior restraint since it happened after a trial and a verdict. Yelp was ordered to do something, but Yelp did not receive any opportunity for a trial.

Yelp benefits from the safe harbour provisions by not being the originator of the comments. Being legally ordered to remove a comment in no way threatens that provision.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#83

Post by SeanDav »

> "Because of the immunity it grants to publishers who act as intermediaries for this flow of information and commentary, “Section 230 is the backbone of the Internet,” says Thomas Burke"

If Yelp was a pure intermediary, perhaps they would have a case, but they are not and neither are any of the other companies mentioned. All these companies decide what they want to keep on their sites and what they want to remove. All of them can and do delete information and block accounts of people that break their rules.

They should not be able to hide behind Section 230 by keeping information on their site that they know to be libellous or illegal and they should be prosecuted for doing so.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#84

Post by nitrogen »

morgante wrote: post #81
lsaferite wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like Yelp doesn't already self-censor to suit it's business needs.

That's completely orthogonal. Yelp is not required to run a neutral public forum—they can institute whatever policies they want. The problem is when the government forces censorship, not when private companies have their own policies on what they'll host. Removing content from your own site is not censorship.

> Self-censorship is not censorship.

It really depends on what motivates the self-censorship.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#85

Post by sharemywin »

twblalock wrote: post #10
cft wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you should read the article to the end before commenting: "Glassdoor.com, which posts anonymous employee comments about companies to inform job-seekers about working conditions, says the ruling began to show up in letters demanding the removal of comments and disclosure of users’ identities almost immediately after it was handed down."

This supports my point that sites can be held accountable for users' posts. It certainly does not undermine my point in any way. And I did read the entire article, and I understood it, thank you very much. You should apologize for suggesting that I did not. EDIT: nevermind, the response was in the wrong part of the thread.

No problem you can just sue and get the judge compel HN to publish the apology.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#86

Post by ap22213 »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #51
icantdrive55 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a plastic surgeon, in in my county, that pissed off a lot of patients. She must have over 50 negative reviews. Well she sued most of them. I think the lawyer sued 45 of them. The judge ruled against all the lawsuits. All thrown out of court. Now, the physician resorts to describing what was physically wrong with the patient online in a rebuttal. For instance, "Susan--you seemed happy when we removed those ugl…

The practice of medicine has always been an art, notwithstanding availability of advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies. Of course it's an art based in science. However, in truth, the science is not fully developed in many if not most disorders, leaving providers to try to help with the limited tools at their disposal. Providing care is finding the delicate balance among sciences and arts, inevitably there ar…

When a doctor approaches their practice as a for-profit transactional business I believe they should be treated as any other similar business. If I go to a bakery and it is poorly run, or I am overcharged or mislead, or the product is of poor quality, I feel some duty to tell other potential customers. And, I feel even more strongly about for-profit doctors as well given what is at stake.

In my particular case, the doctor was one of the 'top N in large metro area' doctors. After the visit, I realized that their placement in those rankings probably had more to do with how they spent money toward advertising and marketing than providing the best possible health care.

Without public reviews, how else could a patient be able to anticipate the quality of care? Rely on boards of medicine? You have to understand that to many, the standards of those boards seems to have fallen into irrelevancy. Plus, they're not exactly impartial or unbiased anyway.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#87

Post by lsaferite »

morgante wrote: post #81
lsaferite wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like Yelp doesn't already self-censor to suit it's business needs.

That's completely orthogonal. Yelp is not required to run a neutral public forum—they can institute whatever policies they want. The problem is when the government forces censorship, not when private companies have their own policies on what they'll host. Removing content from your own site is not censorship.

They are only able to publish libelous user content and NOT be sued due to government extended protections. To then turn around and cry foul when a legal ruling of libel (against one of their users) includes a provision that they remove the libelous content is ridiculous.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#88

Post by dhimes »

draugadrotten wrote: post #60
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called libel. Look it up. Let's say I went around telling everyone, "Wow, vinhboy just fucked my kid!". Anyone who Googles your name can see it. Your are up for a job with a $132,000 salary, but they don't hire you because they go "aren't you that guy that fucked someones kid?" or they just deny you the job silently. You can sue me and if the judge finds that there is no evidence that you actually fucked my kid,…

> they just deny you the job silently. This. I've first hand witnessed several people being rejected/blocked by HR from manager positions in Fortune 100 corporations due to various internet findings. Examples: - pictures on facebook showing the applicant vomiting due to drinking too much, noone wants to risk hiring an alcoholic - search result connecting the applicant to a cult, - search result showing applicant post…

Yep. I know a guy who was falsely accused of sexual impropriety by a female student who made it up when her parents discovered evidence of her promiscuity (which, it was discovered, was with her boyfriend).

She goes unnamed and unscathed. Thanks to Google, he will never work in education again.

If it happened to him it could happen to you.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#89

Post by pif »

morgante wrote: post #81
lsaferite wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like Yelp doesn't already self-censor to suit it's business needs.

That's completely orthogonal. Yelp is not required to run a neutral public forum—they can institute whatever policies they want. The problem is when the government forces censorship, not when private companies have their own policies on what they'll host. Removing content from your own site is not censorship.

> when the government forces censorship

Actually, in this case, it's the justice, not the government. At it makes a huge difference!

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#90

Post by JoshTriplett »

lsaferite wrote: post #82
JoshTriplett wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article says that Yelp has been ordered by a judge to remove a few posts that have been found libelous. Yelp is refusing. Yelp was not a party to the case. > It's also not a case of prior restraint since it happened after a trial and a verdict. Yelp was ordered to do something, but Yelp did not receive any opportunity for a trial.

Yelp benefits from the safe harbour provisions by not being the originator of the comments. Being legally ordered to remove a comment in no way threatens that provision.

A trial to which they're not a named party still shouldn't be able to issue them such a court order.
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