Explaining Internet Laws

I read this St. Petersburg Times areticle and was amazed at how stupid Tommy Duncan is. He is worried about being sued because of his blog.

Duncan said he edited out one post that accused a well-known bay area figure of illegal behavior without offering proof. Another time, he deleted a message that purported to be written by a public figure but wasn't. Though both comments were made in jest by regular contributors, he worried some readers might be fooled.

"Basically, the legal defense right now for posting whatever you want to post is that, 'Well, everybody knows that the Internet is nothing but a bunch of yahoos' (and) that nobody should be relying on the Internet for accuracy anyway," Duncan said.

Tommy should actually do some research and read the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Treatment of publisher or speaker.--No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

That means I am not responsible for comments or blog posts of others and visa versa. The Supreme Court made a famous decision to change decency laws.

The CDA prohibited posting "indecent" or "patently offensive" materials in a public forum on the Internet -- including web pages, newsgroups, chat rooms, or online discussion lists. This would have included the texts of classic fiction such as the "Catcher in the Rye" and "Ulysees", the "7 dirty words", and other materials which, although offensive to some, enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment if published in a newspaper, magazine, or a book, or in the public square. It is also important to note that the CDA was not about child pornography, obscenity, or using the Internet to stalk children. These were already illegal under current law.

Libel is hard to prove in a court of law. The only extreme case I have seen is against Chris Wilson for the porn and gore message board NOWTHATSFUCKEDUP. They attempted to convict Wilson for obscenity. Wilson walked and now the Polk County Sheriff's Office now owns the domain name.

Tommy is an expert of nothing. Would it hurt if he once researched a topic before he open his mouth? Really, dude. It's embarrassing.

The only reason The Times goes to Tommy is because he brown-nosed Steve Spears and Chase Squires back when he was begging The Times to hire him as a blogger. Obviously, that didn't pan out. Apparently, they didn't need someone to write hard-hitting posts about the Strawberry Festival.