Free Speech Yawn of the Year
I support free speech. With that speech comes the responsibility not to slander or libel someone unless I can prove the accusation. If that fails then I better be able to back up what I said or wrote with my wallet. That is why this whole episode really makes me yawn. Free speech is not a license to defame someone’s reputation publicly. Some learn lessons the hard way, I suppose.
Update: For a more hysterical take on this, visit the litter box.
I must say it’s delightful to see unemployed Kathy (”Proud To Run A Hate Blog”) Shaidle plaster yet MORE PayPal buttons on her site. I really like the picture of Joan of Arc, too.
I discovered something interesting about PayPal. Do you know they actually accept donations as low as $0.01? I just learned that.
You are more generous that I would be but I love, just love, the gesture.
Correct me if I am wrong, but a paypal account in this kind of example really doesn’t differ much from common begging does it?. Interesting, that.
Is the money collected from internet panhandling taxable? If so, does anyone think Ezra and Ezralites will declare it.
Time for another non-update on the Union Of Bloggers, and the money that’s been raised.
Ya think?
Im not so sure treehugger, there is a very important element within this mess that I will be watching very closely.
Part of the action claims that a link to a defamatory publication is republication of the libel – and that concerns me.
Part of the action claims that allowing what others said to stand is also actionable – and that concerns me.
To my understanding action against The Free Dominion, Levant, and Shaidle, would appear reasonable – they actually said stuff.
McMillan appears wrapped up in this because of things she allowed other people to say – and as a guy that owns a group blog with unmoderated comments that concerns the living f*uck out of me.
The National Post and Kay are probably on safe ground, what they said was pulled and an apology issued which leads me to believe that they considered their words and the law and decided they had stepped over the line.
Free Dominion, Levant, and Shaidle, are on their own as far as I am concerned, but if Kate publishes a list of those who have donated to her defense do not be surprised to see my name on it.
I don’t much like the way the Internet world is going these days. A few weeks ago I ended up securing the local free node I operated out of my apartment as a direct result of CHRC here on Ottawa using an unsecured wireless connection to post crap to a white supremacist site in some sort of sting operation.
– and now, regardless of what they claim to be doing, busy little beavers like Warman, and Levant, and Shaidle, are (IMO) out there doing little more than screwing it up for the rest of us with their “free speech” games.
Final note
I am currently seeking legal advice regarding my disclaimer at the bottom of the page in relation to this action, as well as under what conditions I might be held legally responsible for what others say in this space.
I do not have the financial resources to fight even an unreasonable legal action that gets tossed out early, and I do not have any faith in either Ezra, or the blogosphere, to come to my aid should it happen.
Thank you very much Richard Warman, Ezra Levant, and Kathy Shaidle, for all your hard work and dedication in making the blogosphere that much more difficult for those of us who not only know what real free speech is about, but are responsible enough to embrace it.
That’s probably the best summary, I’ve read on this anywhere SL. I share your concern and understand where you are coming from. It is one reason why I am so careful about what I say when I post here. My point was that there is responsibility that comes with free speech – that you cannot breathlessly libel people at will and think that there are no consequences.
stageleft,
There is some case law, as I understand it, that will be very relevant to Kate McMillan’s defense in particular. I don’t have time right now to research it, but I believe there was a case in B.C. a few years ago against a blog or online forum, suing the host for defamation based on what an anonymous poster wrote.
The court found that the host of a public forum could not be held liable for the words put into it by third-parties.
McMillan appears wrapped up in this because of things she allowed other people to say – and as a guy that owns a group blog with unmoderated comments that concerns the living f*uck out of me.
Isn’t the issue also that she allowed someone else, Five Feet of Something, to post an article on her site? My understanding of the suit was that it was both the comments section AND the post that got Kate wrapped up in this. Comments I disagree totally about, but if you are allowing other people to use your site to post articles that are defamatory, don’t you bare some responsibility? All I can use as a parallel is a magazine. They are responsible for the content within, as are newspaper editors. It wouldn’t just be the author who would be sued for defamation.
McMillan appears wrapped up in this because of things she allowed other people to say – and as a guy that owns a group blog with unmoderated comments that concerns the living f*uck out of me.
Why? Lets say for instance someone posts that person X is a pedophile and person X sues you. What would you do? Rant and rave about freedom of speech or acknowledge the comment was libelous and remove it. I think it’s safe to say you’d do the latter and the matter would be laid to rest.
Kate on the other hand is a demented lunatic so she’s choosing the former option. So fuck her. She deserves to get skewered.
as a direct result of CHRC here on Ottawa using an unsecured wireless connection to post crap to a white supremacist site in some sort of sting operation.
Sigh. Now you’re buying into Lemire’s konspiracy theories.
You are right to be concerned. Legal precedents and customary practices, once established, are tools that can be used by everyone.
Shudders aside, and back to the linked post: “…I take my inspiration from the courageous Founding Fathers…”
Does Canada actually (officially, sort of, in that Canadian “kinda” way we have) have people we refer to as “founding fathers”? I’ve always thought we just had Sir Big Daddy John A. as THE founding father.
Maybe that’s just a result of a crappy public education (on my part)?
Candace, I believe she’s pitching in a panic to her American readership.
Canada has the “Fathers of Confederation” but, as far as I am aware, no really solid nationally accepted definition of who they actually are.
As b said, she is probably looking for sympathy from south of the border where that sort of patriotic phrase goes over bigger than it does here. That’s just a guess though, I have run into Canadians who don’t know that we don’t actually have “Founding Fathers”, she could be one of them.
Do we agree that to falsely publish an accusation that person X has committed a crime should be illegal?
The comment section is really Kate’s biggest problem. Any given post over the last month or so are full of comments by some real morons that someone like Warman might find defamatory. She has made no effort to police them.
“The comment section is really Kate’s biggest problem.”
Agreed. But ask any municipal counselor – you’re responsible for the rat-infested midden you allow to grow in your backyard.
TH! You made me look! Why did you make me look? I actually clicked on that link and… (boo hoo) I’m distraught. I mean, the inhumanity. How uncouth of this guy to sue our heroes over there for spreading nasty, unproven, unvarifiable, rumours that he says damaged his reputation. Da noive!
The kicker was that Joan of Arc thingy at the bottom of the page.
Switching back to reality…. These guys have to be the Jim and Tammy Faye of Canada’s blogosphere. I cannot wait for people to see through all that runny mascara and faux rapture smiles.
Depends b, if I show up somewhere in someones comments claiming that an individual is a criminal, and claim to have irrefutable proof of that, I can be sued if I’m blowing hot air – should the blogger who owns the blog I made the statement at be joined in that suit?
Should all bloggers be required to verify what their commenter’s are saying?
I hate to impinge on Mike Brock’s territory here and take over as self-appointed legal know-it-all but…
In print, a publisher shares responsibility with contributors (letter writers, editors, etc) if found guilty of defamation. Online, it’s much less certain. Some ISP’s have been held responsible for allowing hate sites to proliferate. Not sure about defamation, although we’re drawing lines of responsibility here.
Some people want news sites to show due diligence against online abuse by at least monitoring public exchanges to make sure hate or defamation do not occur. This may be one possible reason why Jonathan Kay and the Notional Past wiped their finger prints on this subject from that site.
But the courts have so much catching up to do. I suspect courts may eventually feel compelled to outline certain protocols that some bloggers will scream bloody murder about, but others might welcome in the presence of complete chaos, not to mention government silence on this and other online issues while they jump all over individual privacy rights on pretense of national security issues.
Should all bloggers be required to verify what their commenter’s are saying?
I’m not sure how to get around that and still preserve the advantages of cyberspace and a pure marketplace of ideas. I’ve always been drawn to blogs where the bloggers interact with their commenters, and that does a lot create a kind of environment over time that I don’t think anyone should find all that troublesome (when they do, that’s when I worry).
In the specific case you mention, if you challenge the libelous assertion and find it meritless, you can justifiably delete it and assume the commenter is a fabulist or at least communication information that’s better handled through other channels.
If we get to the point of pure anarchism…no government oversight, no telecommunications meddling, no ISP service agreements, etc. etc., then all of this will become moot. But I do not ever expect that to happen until we have a world radically different than the one we have now.
Does anyone, other than me, actually think this is a good thing? I mean, freedom of speech is one thing – being a responsible blogger is another. If Warman wins this suit, it will force bloggers to be more careful (ahem, Sentinel) with what they print. Some bloggers print bald face lies that they saw on someone else’s site. We need to be responsible for what appears on our site.
As for comments, that’s a tough one. I tend to agree with Ti that if you engage your commentators as you do here, you can generally control or create the atmosphere where libelous comments are not welcome or at the very least, challenged and debunked.
At the end of the day, do your homework and don’t rush to publish something (ahem, Sentinel) just because it fits your worldview. Be responsible with your freedom.
Whooee! The bigass MSM sites like the Mop’n'Pail post disclaimers. So do some blogs. Like this:
While I ain’t a goddam crooked snake-in-the-grass lawyer, I reckon the disclaimer helps deflect litigation. I’m sure the MSM put their disclaimers up on the advice of their high-paid, eminently qualified lawsuit avoiders.
The disclaimer won’t help if the blog owner is there in the comments making offensive statements or cheering them on.
Guest posts? No question. The blog owner/publisher must share responsibility with the author.
If Mr. Warman was genuinely libeled and can prove it in court, I don’t see this as a particularly bad thing. It will, as Peter D sez, force some sense of responsibility on blog publishers. O’ course, all present company and about 95% of bloggers already have enough common decency and commonsense not to libel anyone. The demagogues who put themselves on a phony free speech pedestal in order to sully someone’s good name need to learn that their actions are actionable.
JB
Sorta kinda off topic. But two founding fathers of Confederation to add to J-Mac. Louis Riel and Joey Smallwood. I wonder if the plea is claiming them? I’d certainly like to hear the list being invoked.
Why is it the homegrown neocon bloggers often sound more like fifth-columnist Americans inside Canada than Canadians, especially considering the ‘conservative’ American blogs pledging their support in this cause celebre?
“The court found that the host of a public forum could not be held liable for the words put into it by third-parties.”
Kate McMillan’s blog is not a public forum. She regularly prunes the comments of people who don’t meet her standards. If she did not engage in that kind of moderation and left is as a free-for-all she would be in better shape. But as it is – her control having been excercised in the past over a blog owned by her is problematic. Also, people who post to Kate’s site have no means to undo their comment themselves. They have to appeal to Kate or her guest bloggers to do so. In most forums the ability to remove a post after the fact (which might mitigate damage done to the complainant) is a regular feature.
Also – with respect to unmoderated com-boxes, the idea that one holds zero responsibility for what is said on a blog seems faulty when it comes to legality. I am not going to discuss the morality of it at this point.
All I knew was that when I was sued, along with my editor at the Citizen paper, and the publisher, AND CanWest itself – CanWest could not put out the defence that they let somebody write something, and the editor allowed it to go out, and the publisher (who oversees this kind of thing) also allowed it, and Canwest itself was NOT responsible because their people were NOT paying attention or off at a dog show and left a dingbat in charge of the Media Empire, or the Citizen Newspaper.
I’ve always taken it as a given that what is on one’s blog, that one has control over, one can be held responsible for.
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade — but my experience tells me that unmoderated blog com-boxes are a liability to whomever hosts them. Especially if there is any kind of moderation done by the owner, and people do not have the ability to remove a comment once they have made it.
It sucks that from a legal standpoint you most probably (and for safety sake) do or should moderate and prune anything you percieve as actionable. But that’s the way the law works in Canada on this. Just ask Marc Francis – of Section 15.
I think it would be a good idea to do our own fundraising for him, while the Speechies do their non-ending e-telethon.
PS – for all those who are seeking some sort of legal advice on the issue of com-boxes… Just remember how comments work at various mainstream media outlets. No need to spend money on an attorney. Take your cue for those who have already paid the big bucks for an opinion.
ALL comments are moderated and have to be approved before being attached to a story or article. Remember Antonia Z complaining about how hard it was to spend hours a day vetting each comment left on her first blog? Think about all those MSM-Blogs, and their comment policy.
You bet your ass they have consulted high price lawyers who specialize in this kind of law and they are following their lawyers advice to the letter.
It sucks – but that’s the way things work from a legal standpoint.
As for the disclaimer… You might want to have a boilerplate wording and when you see a comment that could be actionable, you might want to in italics edit the comment to add that boilerplate language…
The issue with disclaimers is that people have to see the disclaimer – it should be placed prominently – highly visible… Because the fineprint at the bottom of a blog might not even be seen by people participating. That’s why I would suggest using the edit function to put it out whenever you see something actionable.
Disclaimers usually only mitigate the circumstances. It’s one sign of due diligence. Challenging a third party’s deliberate attempt to defame on your blog might also be seen as another sign of diligence. If, however, you simply allow specious, deliberate lies about someone sit there and fester even more poison, would that be seen as failure to set and abide by certain standards of care. Who knows?
The thing is, I just don’t think you or your blog site have much to worry about. Humour is tagged as humour. Satire is clearly that. Serious discussion is encouraged and engaged. Deliberate character assassination is not tolerated here.
I say, let the writs fall where they may.
Shmohawk, your sister once dated Canadian Sentinel.
Sue you, ya big wimp. C’mon, I dare ya.
MW sed: “I’ve always taken it as a given that what is on one’s blog, that one has control over, one can be held responsible for.”
But you’ve got journalism experience. Most bloggers don’t. Some know better but don’t care. It’s inevitable that issues like this will wind up in court.
As for the whole chain of command getting sued for something you might have written… If I’m going to sue someone, I’m going after the money. I could care less about the lowly scribe. I’m going after the arses with bucks. The chain of command, from the publisher on down. If you’re a self-publisher, in hock up to your eyeballs, where’s the incentive? Unless the attack is so nasty, so brutal, so mean and stupid….
Balb: “Sue you, ya big wimp. C’mon, I dare ya.”
Don’t you mean: “Sue me,” yadda yadda?
First, I know you’re really a squeegee kid trying to make it in (of all places) Chinatown. Not the most business savvy choice, but c’est la dork. Then, I notice by the cut of yer jib, that you have pretentions of dancing with the whale sharks. As a connoiseur of whale shark blubber, I am immediately aware that those pics of you in the water with the aforementioned fishies HAVE BEEN PHOTOSHOPPED!
Ergo, ipso fatso, you is a bigger wimp than me. So dere.
“Don’t you mean: “Sue me”?”
Very good. You fiendishly avoided my FOIST cunning trap. Or…did you cunningly avoid my FOIST fiendish trap? In any case, never gamble with a Sicilian when death is on the line.
[...] a previous post on the Warman affair, I took a simplistic, perhaps vindictive, approach to the libel suit that now [...]
It’s sure nice to live here in the good old USA, where we still have freedom of speech.
Excellent. By all means, stay there.
Of course down here we have a true (fairly) conservative party to keep the liberals at least a little bit honest. I shudder to think what it would be like without a good two-party system.
Yeah, we look at your “two party” system with some amazement. With sufficient illumination and a powerful lens, some of our keenest observers claim they can actually distinguish between them.
In Canada, of course, we have a real range of political options. I’m sure your observers find it pretty confusing too.
It’s sure nice to live here in the good old USA, where we still have freedom of speech.
I’m starting to think they actually believe this. I always thought they were just having us on…you know social and poltical satire.
No, they’re quite serious. It’s the medieval cosmographer phenomenon. Have I explained the medieval cosmographer phenomenon?
Have I explained the medieval cosmographer phenomenon?
I think you attempted once, but I didn’t like where I thought it might lead, and so had you hauled off for state interrogation before you got started. *tsk*…My bad!
Please, explain…
Oh, that was YOU! Why you wascally wapscallion…
Okay, I’ll explain, but you’ll have to wait a bit…I’m off to Rankin Inlet tomorrow for a week.
I can wait. In the meantime…”If a free speecher falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear him, does he make a sound?”
Whoa!
There is actually quite a bit of difference between our two parties. Our Republicans are often quite conservative in outlook, while the Democrats tend toward the dippy liberalism that has consumed your politics up in Canada. This is why we still have a strong military, unlike Canada and Western Europe.
Yes, we’ve noticed that you perceive an enormous difference between your parties. You’re mistaken, of course, as the most cursory examination of the range of political options available in other western democracies will show you. But that’s okay: we don’t really expect you to understand that there’s a planet out here beyond your borders.
As for your military – yes, we’ve also noticed you guys have a hard time getting along with the rest of the planet.
(Okay, everybody, any bets on how long before he comes back and roars about actually defending OUR freedom, and bearing the burden of extending American style democracy to an ungrateful world, etc, etc, etc? 10…9…8…)
There is actually quite a bit of difference between our two parties. Our Republicans are often quite conservative in outlook…
Republican Offenders. A lot these crimes sure aren’t conservative.
Boring retorts. Bye forever.
Fare thee well.