
A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet - doctorshady
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-online-publishers-20160909-snap-story.html
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OliverJones
Working for a nonprofit, I once was ripped off by a service provider. I posted
a Yelp review describing the facts of the case and saying "would-be customers,
be careful." This service provider retaliated by posting false and malicious
statements about my character. Lucky we had a pro-bono lawyer, or this would
have cost me thousands. As it is, it did cost the nonprofit thousands (in the
ripoff). We wasted time too.

(Hint: it's really hard to collect after you get a favorable judgement in
small claims court. Small claims court is a waste of time unless you're making
a claim against a deep-pocketed multinational corporation.)

This experience taught me that Yelp is useless for anything except five-star
reviews. The personal risk of using Yelp to tell the truth about bad service
is simply too high.

~~~
ensignavenger
It may depend on your jurisdiction, but I don't think in most jurisdictions it
is any harder to collect a judgment from small clams court than it is any
other judgment... but I know from personal experience how hard it can be to
collect a judgment! (Though in my case, after a lot of perseverance, time and
money, I was able to finally collect- and even if it wasn't worth the time, I
would probably do it over again, for the experience and for the fact that I
believe it will help keep the same person from ripping off someone else in the
future- someone else that may not be able to fight back.

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tomohawk
Since sites like facebook seem to be taking more of an active role in
censoring/curating comments and content, it seems like this exemption would no
longer apply to them at some point.

~~~
makomk
As the law currently stands, no. You can take an active role in curating
comments and still be protected. You can even build a business model around
charging people to remove defamatory information about them from your site,
and Section 230 not only protects you from liability, it _protects your
business model by preventing the courts from forcing you to remove that
content_. A number of companies such as RipoffReport.com have built up very
successful businesses around this model, and it's that which is endangered by
this lawsuit.

~~~
pif
> it protects your business model by preventing the courts from forcing you to
> remove that content.

Well, than Section 230 is simply wrong. It's important not to hold Yelp
responsible for what a user wrote on his forum, but I fail to see how it can
be damaging for a site to delete some unlawful-ruled content (which it _didn
't_ create), apart from the immoral case you named.

~~~
morgante
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.

~~~
pif
> they should just order the reviewer to take it down

What if the reviewer refuses? No matter the fine, no matter the years in jail
they may spend, this will not fulfil the plaintiff's right to have that
comment removed.

~~~
Dylan16807
Sometimes remedies are imperfect. If someone is willing to spend the rest of
their life in jail for contempt of court, that's not a reason to start looking
for other methods of enforcement, that's a reason to be glad they're out of
your life.

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gcb0
B.S.

this is orders of magnitude less significant than big studios removing random
youtube videos from the air, accusing them of copyright infringement, even
ones that have no background music, just because it says bad things about
something the studio worked on.

~~~
twblalock
Actually, this is far more significant than YouTube videos being taken down.
If Yelp loses, this case could make it possible for pretty much any site that
accepts user comments, including YouTube, social networks like Facebook,
review sites, advertising sites like Craiglist, and even personal blogs with
comment sections, to be held accountable for what users post.

That could lead to a significant amount of prior restraint which would have
the effect of restricting online speech in places where it is most useful.
That would be much further-reaching than anything YouTube does.

~~~
kjksf
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.

~~~
twblalock
I didn't say this was prior restraint. I said it could _lead to_ prior
restraint. So does the article, and so does common sense -- if companies can
be hauled into court whenever someone posts libel on their sites, they will
take steps to prevent such libel from being posted in the first place, e.g. by
proactively moderating and filtering negative reviews. The article explicitly
addresses this possibility.

~~~
cft
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."

~~~
twblalock
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.

~~~
cft
Oops sorry. I commented at the wrong level: this was meant to be a response to
kjksf above in the thread, trying to support your point...

~~~
twblalock
In that case, I apologize to you.

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vinhboy
I don't know why most of the comments on here, so far, are so nonchalant about
this.

> Hassell sued Bird for libel and won a judgment for more than $550,000 in
> damages and costs, as well as an injunction ordering Bird to remove the
> ostensibly defamatory material from Yelp

This is fucking nuts. How can someone be sued for $550K for writing a bad yelp
review.

Can someone please explain why the law allows for ridiculous damages like
this.

If this is allowed, I would wipe my online identity and live in Tor
permanently.

~~~
jrockway
It appears they won by default. The defendant never showed up to court, and
may have never been served papers.

~~~
mgleason_3
How can you win when the defendant hasn't been served?

You can't just some random house or even a former residence. The papers
actually have to be given to the defendant, right?

~~~
ramblenode
(Disclaimer: not an attorney; someone with more knowledge feel free to correct
me)

At least for civil cases in some states, the plaintiff only needs to make a
"good faith" attempt at serving the defendant (specific requirements for this
may be enumerated). After a certain amount of time has passed without a reply,
a trial date can be set and the case can proceed.

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keithpeter
One wonders if Ava Bird is actually OK. Do people often drop off the grid like
that and fail to respond to court papers &c?

UK: I suspect the legal situation is a bit more complex here (it usually is),
so perhaps the title should be 'most important law in the US'?

~~~
buro9
> UK: I suspect the legal situation is a bit more complex here (it usually
> is), so perhaps the title should be 'most important law in the US'? reply

It's simpler in the UK and EU at the moment.

You want to look at the EU e-commerce directive, paragraph 43 and the
definition of "mere conduit" in the appendix: [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32000L0031&from=EN)

In essence, (and directly from the law):

    
    
        "Mere conduit"
        
        1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission
         in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the
         provision of access to a communication network, Member States shall ensure that the 
         service provider is not liable 
         for the information transmitted, on condition that the provider:
        
        (a) does not initiate the transmission;
        
        (b) does not select the receiver of the transmission; and
        
        (c) does not select or modify the information contained in the transmission.

~~~
confounded
So, algorithmic curation completely changes classification. (Seems like a
sensible law.)

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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.

~~~
zaroth
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "pure intermediary". Section 230 does not
say that you have to publish all user-generated content indiscriminately in
order for its safe-harbor to apply.

IANAL, but that's not how I understand that Section 230 works. If it did work
that way, I think the law would be horribly broken. No site hosting UGC can be
completely un-moderated, and therefore by your reasoning, no site with UGC
content could benefit from Section 230.

Luckily, sites can exercise some measure of editorial control of their UGC
while at the same time still benefiting from Section 230 protections. As the
OP states, the law is often regarded as the legal backbone of the internet,
and its protections for publishers should not be easily dismissed.

What Yelp is demanding here is to be a named defendant if they are to be bound
by the court decision, which is already the standard for newspapers. I think
it's fair to expect to have a seat at the table if the courts are going to be
ordering you to modify your site. Particularly because in this case there
appear to be questions-of-fact regarding which reviews were even written by
the defendant.

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morecoffee
Can Yelp have it both ways? It seems Bird was ordered to remove the comment,
but Hassel couldn't prove she made them.

Yelp would either have to say that Bird made the comments, and absolve
themselves of responsibility, or instead become responsible. Otherwise it
would seem that any anonymous comment could be used to skip libel penalties.
Surely there has to be precedent for this in the past few years.

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lambdasquirrel
So, what if sites only have to remove the content if it's been ruled as
defamatory? If it's some dumb little thing like an immature comment on a
Youtube video, no big deal. If it's something injurious like a bad review on
something that matters, then yeah, should be taken down.

Am I missing something here?

~~~
twblalock
The courts might make an exception for defamatory or libelous content, or they
might undermine section 230 to the extent that it no longer works well, or
they might reject it entirely. If section 230 is struck down, the consequences
will not be limited to defamatory or libelous content.

~~~
magicalist
> _If section 230 is struck down_

to be clear here: a federal law cannot be struck down by a state court.

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bcg1
Couldn't Yelp just leave the comment up but add a message to note that it has
ruled as defamation by the court? Maybe the court should structure its order
like that, so that no content has to be removed but the plaintiff can get some
relief.

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eeZi
We don't have section 230 in Europe yet the sky isn't falling.

~~~
guelo
Yea, all the giant European social media companies are doing fine. Oh wait,
they don't exist. I wonder why.

~~~
eeZi
US companies like Facebook are doing business in Europe and have users in
Europe, so they're subject to EU law.

~~~
twblalock
That could change. At some point, the cost of complying with EU regulation
might be greater than the cost of shutting down the EU subsidiaries, and
Facebook could do that, host all content in the US, and be subject to US law
only.

Would the EU block Facebook as a response? I doubt that will be a popular
move.

~~~
Xylakant
That's not how things work. Under german law, if you provide a service that is
targeted at german customers you're bound by german (hence EU) rules for that
transaction, no matter where your company is located [1]. Enforcement may
still be a problem, but since Facebook obviously needs to display ads that are
locally relevant they need to have business interactions with EU company and
it would be possible to make that at least harder, if not impossible. The EU
doesn't need to block Facebook to punish it. Facebook may withdraw from the EU
market as a result, but that's voluntary from facebooks side.

[1] having a german localization is a strong indicator in that case.

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dredmorbius
Clickbait title.

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the_duke
Please add "US" in the title.

The world has more than one legal system.

~~~
jasongill
I'd say it's pretty well established that SF means San Francisco, which is
most definitely in the US.

~~~
ci5er
I'm in the US, and I always read it as one of Science Fiction, Sugar Free,
Semper Fi, Source Forge or even Stupidity Factor before I have to stop and
think about what else it might mean. Not everyone on planet Earth uses
California as the zero point in their mental coordinate system.

