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Monday, July 12, 2010 | 2:43 p.m.
CARSON CITY – A federal appeals court has ruled that the constitutional right of free speech is limited in cases of anonymous comments on the Internet made about the practices of private business.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the constitutional protection “varies depending on the circumstances and the type of speech at issue.”
The court, which held oral arguments in the case in Las Vegas in March, affirmed the decision of Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Reed in the battle between Quixtar and Signature Management TEAM, LLC.
The court, in an opinion written by Judge M. Margaret McKeown, said “Given the importance of political speech in the history of this country, it is not surprising that courts afford political speech the highest level of protection.”
But McKeown, quoting from another court’s decision, wrote, “Commercial speech on the other hand, enjoys a limited measure of protection, commensurate with its subordinate position in the scale of First Amendment values…”
Quixtar, successor to Amway Corporation, markets cosmetics, nutritional supplements and other products. It sued Signature, where two former Quixtar employees work. Quixtar claims former employees Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady had non-competition clauses in their contracts and suits are under way on the issue.
In these suits, Quixtar claimed that a smear campaign was carried on by Signature and it sought to find out who was behind it. These anonymous complaints on the Internet included allegations that Quixtar secretly acknowledges its products are overpriced, they don’t meet FTC rules and the company suffers from systemic dishonesty.
In depositions in these non-competition suits, Quixtar sought to force TEAM employee Benjamin Dickie to reveal the identity of five anonymous online commenters who allegedly made the defamatory comments about Quixtar. Dickie refused.
Judge Reed ordered Dickie to reveal the names of three of the speakers but said the other two could be kept confidential. An appeal was filed and the circuit court upheld Reed.
McKeown said there have been a number of these cases and she wrote, “Anonymous online speech is an increasingly important issue in the commercial context, particularly in light of the ubiquity of the Internet.”
Relying on prior court decisions, the court said the party suing to get the names of the anonymous online speakers must submit sufficient evidence that it has been harmed by the comments.
In a footnote, the court said some speech, such as fighting words and obscenity, is not protected by the First Amendment. Fighting words, the court said, are that “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace.”
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I never post anonymously, unlike most people. I never mince words either, but I am accountable for whatever I say.
This is step one to turning on the lights to the anonymous comments that overrun the Internet with useless, agenda-driven information from questionable sources.
Common sense dictates that you don't give credit to anonymous posts anyways. Otherwise because people keep posting using the same screen names over and over again, it's usually pretty easy to figure out what their real identities are.
Getting back to the subject, the case at hand is very interesting because it's going to probably set a very nasty precedent in the long term. The First Amendment protects Free Speech of course. But this court has just opened up a Pandora's Box of problems by trying to classify speech. Particularly trying to create the sub categories of "Political" versus "Commercial". More specifically Corporate Lawyers will have a field day with this in the future. Take for example Amazon.com. Consumers can write reviews of products they have purchased, and in return other potential customers who are looking at said product can then make a decision on said product based off of those reviews. If a product has enough positive reviews, that may boost confidence and lead to a purchase. But too many negative reviews, people may not purchase it at all.
This could lead to a Chilling Effect where corporations could launch lawsuits against sites that host negative reviews, as well as the individuals who compose them. If a plaintiff could show enough negative reviews against them as a whole or an individual product eroded "Consumer Confidence" and led to a decrease in sales (which could be done), they could sue for damages...
Very scary stuff.
Look, folks,
you do not have to destroy our democracy or the right to speak freely whatever is on your mind.
Just turn off the commenting section, if you are fed up with negative comments at your blog, sales application, website's guest book, etc. ...such easy.
And let me recommend to you playing it cool, if its2hot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryRgOU76V...
Regards
Banana_Joe
"In a footnote, the court said some speech, such as fighting words and obscenity, is not protected by the First Amendment. Fighting words, the court said, are that "by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace."
Really? I don't see that mentioned on the first amendment.
Hey, here's an idea, instead of living in 1777, lets move to the present year stop using the amendments all together! Can you imagine that? wow. Wait - Lawyers would go broke, people would cry about gun control, etc...
This country is doomed if it doesn't start changing its act, everyone else is going to surpass us. (Germany, Brazil, China, etc...) and we'll be no better then Mexico in 20 years.
... but hey, at least we'll have our amendments! LOL
Hey, folks. I do love the amendments.
So, hands off them, or somebody will be shot.
Imho there is no need to try some Orwell-dictatorship right now, since 1984 has already passed, the politicians are twenty-six years late on removing democratic rights due to some trash-commenters who can hardly write their own name without making orthographic mistakes.
No need to overreact to kids talking/writing trash on the internet right now.
Keep the faith.
Regards
Banana_Joe
I do love how the courts have decided that campaign contributions equals free speech to corporations, and is therefore protected, but actual speech ABOUT a commercial topic by individuals is some how NOT protected. Score another win for the corporations.
I am surprised that the RJ hasn't sued any of its anonymous detractors over here on the Sun comments sections.
The federal court is only operating under the direction of previous US Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1971 (for commercial speech) and as early as 1919 for political speech. That the court is making distinctions is therefore nothing new.
The fact is clear: People's lives can be ruined by instant international lies spread by anonymous, agenda-driven comments on the Internet. NPR reported a story on a top Yale law graduate whose job hunt was stymied by a jealous former classmate who posted anonymous lies about her on the Internet. This person even admitted to posting them and that the statements were untrue, and yet the blog site refused to remove them, citing, uh, "free speech."
Without accountability, there is simply no way of knowing WHO is saying something or WHY they are saying it. Often, it has little to do with spreading the truth. The need for accountability is proven each time the Sun requires one to log in using FaceBook to comment on a story, and the number of comments shrinks to almost zero.
The big problem here is the amazing ability of some people to believe EVERYTHING they read on the Internet. If someones job hunt was hurt because of lies posted anonymously on the Internet then I'd say the wrong in that story is on the idiots who believed the Internet rumors.
If schools or parents taught ANY critical thinking this would not be a problem, and there would not be a birther movement and Fox news would be out of business as well.
I don't disagree with your point, "ThisOneGuy," but it doesn't work in the real world. Employers use Google as much anything else these days, and when website like the Las Vegas Sun permit comments to be attached to news stories anonymously, Google make no differentiation between the news story and the comments.
Even worse, local news reports sometimes spend half the "report" on the facts uncovered by journalists, and half the report repeating quotes they have pulled from anonymous online sources. That is an embarrassing and irresponsible use of the Fourth Estate. Without some kind of parameters placed on anonymous speech and how it is used, pretty soon there will be no accountable sources of information.
I suppose that making personal identification/authentication additionally to login credentials and IP tracing an obligation before enabling anyone using the internet would reduce the amount of online users to less than ten percent of nowadays amount of users due to the highly increasing dangers of identity theft.
1984 is over, but keep reading the Orwell books, like "Animal Farm", which is very recommendable as well.
Regards
Banana_Joe
Orwell's books were focused on political subjects, not commercial speech.
There is an error in the story. Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady WERE NOT employees of Quixtar. They were IBO's. There is a huge difference. One collects a salary and the other attempts to build an independent business, investing their time and money.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the most overturned appeals court in the nation. It doesn't matter what they say.
A lotta lawyers make bank on the looseness of the 9th.
It benefits Americans, though, across the board. Here's how:
it pushes the envelope
it tries the outrageous
it carries logic and law to their natural connection points as dictated by a reasonable appeal.
Let freedom ring!
Here we go, Mr. Clarke, ...freedom, freedom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE41YPdPu...
Regards
Banana_Joe