But sometimes it is. And the TSA is one entity that has gained quite a bit of attention since then. As airports have continued to implement stronger safety measures over the last decade, many have put the Transportation Security Administration into the crosshairs, railing against random searches and pat-downs – which they say violate some of their basic human rights. One thing on which we can all agree – getting patted down in an airport isn’t a whole lot of fun.

What is the limit of free speech on the internet? In a situation where no facts have been entered into the legal record, should someone be able to make accusations in a blog post? Let us know in the comments.

One woman had a particularly nasty experience during a TSA pat-down. According to columnist and blogger Amy Alkon, her experience with a particular TSA agent went way past uncomfortable.

In a blog post, Alkon details a March 31st incident where she accuses a TSA agent of “raping” her with her hand during a public pat-down in Los Angeles.

Alkon writes about her disapproval of the whole procedure in general, saying that the pat-downs are both a physical violation as well as a constitutional one. On that day, she admits that she decided to make a scene on purpose, to bring attention to what she thinks is an unfair act, “to make it uncomfortable for them to violate us and our rights,” she said. So she began sobbing, loudly. According to Alkon, this was what happened next -

Nearing the end of this violation, I sobbed even louder as the woman, FOUR TIMES, stuck the side of her gloved hand INTO my vagina, through my pants. Between my labia. She really got up there. Four times. Back right and left, and front right and left. In my vagina. Between my labia. I was shocked — utterly unprepared for how she got the side of her hand up there. It was government-sanctioned sexual assault.

Upon leaving, still sobbing, I yelled to the woman, “YOU RAPED ME.” And I took her name to see if I could file sexual assault charges on my return. This woman, and all of those who support this system deserve no less than this sort of unpleasant experience, and from all of us.

Apparently, the lawsuit idea fell through as her lawyer told her she had an unwinnable case.

But now, the TSA agent in question is threatening to sue Alkon for her blog post, claiming defamation. Thedala Magee has asked for $500,000 as well as the removal of the blog post.

It doesn’t look like Alkon is going to comply with that request, as she writes today on her blog –

Magee is looking for me to pay her $500K, apologize to her, and take down my blog item about her — because I had the nerve to exercise my First Amendment rights and complain after she jammed her hand sideways into my vagina four times. (Unfortunately for Ms. Magee, I’ve always made a pretty crappy victim.)

She has also gained the services of a First Amendment lawyer named Marc Randazza who is working the case pro bono.

The letter that Magee sent Alkon requesting the monetary damages and the retraction of the “rape” allegations says that the “outbursts in public and writings on the internet” have subjected Magee to “hatred, contempt, and ridicule” and caused her “severe emotional distress, fear, and problems doing her duty.”

Alkon’s lawyer Randazza sent a letter back, saying –

Your client aggressively pushed her fingers into my client’s vulva. I am certain that she did not expect to find a bomb there. She did this to humiliate my client, to punish her for exercising her rights, and to send a message to others who might do the same. It was absolutely a sexual assault, perpetrated in order to exercise power over the victim. We agree with Ms. Alkon’s characterization of this crime as “rape,” and so would any reasonable juror.

He then quotes precedent defending the use of the word “rape” as hyperbolic language. So even if Magee didn’t “rape” Alkon in some meaning of the word, he says that she has the right to characterize it as such.

TSAAlkonThedalaMageeLtr

Response to TSA Agent legal threat

TSA pat-downs have remained a hot button issue for years. Recently, the Texas legislature was forced to pull their “Groping Bill” when the U.S. Attorney for Texas warned that the passing of said bill would most definitely result in flight shutdowns. The “Groping Bill” would have made any TSA pat-down that involved the anus, buttocks or sexual organs a crime.

If everything actually happened as Alkon reports, then you have to agree that this TSA agent’s actions crossed the line – no matter where you stand on the larger issue. Still, some would argue that penalizing the agent for enforcing policies under the instruction of the federal government is the wrong approach. Although it’s highly unlikely that a superior has ever told an agent to go as far as Magee allegedly went.

At this point, it seems to be a case of one person’s word against another person’s word. Should Alkon have the right to make these statements about her experience on her blog? Does a blog post like that fall into the realm of defamation of character? Let us know what you think.

Public Citizen, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, and The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression have stepped to the defense of Waldo Jaquith, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based blogger subpoenaed to release a wide swath of information to a court in the process of hearing a defamation case.

Waldo Jaquith
by Jen Fariello
readthehook.com

Jaquith, an independent blogger who runs cvillenews.com, blogged about a lawsuit filed by Thomas Garret, a media personality, against Charlottesville weekly “The Hook.” Garret’s attorneys are demanding Jaquith produce all communications with sources for that blog post, that he identify all anonymous commentators on the blog, and all readers who read the blog post, according to Public Citizen. The suit seeks emails to and from Jaquith relating to Garret or the lawsuit, and any documents relating to information obtained, generated or created in writing the resulting article.

Paul Alan Levy

“One of our country’s founding values is that the person standing on the soapbox in the town square has the same freedom of speech they have at The New York Times or the Toledo Blade, for that matter,” said Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy. “Bloggers such as Jaquith may not be ‘traditional’ journalists but they play an integral part in the way people get their news today.”

An attorney for the ACLU warned that if the subpoena is allowed to stand, bloggers would have to look over their shoulders whenever they write about a pending lawsuit, which could have a chilling and devastating effect on free speech.

This case is state specific, and the attorneys stepping in on Jaquith’s behalf are arguing he’s covered under Virginia’s own journalist shield law. Nationally, under the House of Representatives’ proposed version of the Free Flow of Information Act, Jaquith would only be covered by federal shield laws if he makes a living from his blog and he has some sort of boss or employer.

We didn’t bother to ask Jaquith if he made money from his local news blog (judging from lack advertising, we’re guessing not) because that question is irrelevant. So is the question of whether he has a supervisor of some kind. If he considers himself a local watchdog, that should be enough for anybody, and he should be protected under any shield law targeted toward protecting freedom of the press.

In an interesting twist, this case is happening in Virginia, the home state of Rep. Rick Boucher, the sponsor of the House version of the Free Flow of Information Act. Without extending protection to bloggers, passion publishers, nonprofits (and now anonymous commentators, it would seem), Boucher and the slew of cosponsors on this bill (below) are abridging the freedom of the nonprofit, independent press, a clear violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Rep. Boucher did not return request for comment or defense of how the House has defined “journalist,” how it is not a violation of the First Amendment, or whether legislators intend to expand the definition to include the press in all its forms. Currently the bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where hopefully these problems will be brought to light.

*House of Representatives Free Flow of Information Act of 2009 cosponsors: Mr. PENCE, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. GOODLATTE, Mr. YARMUTH, Mr. WALDEN, Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California, Mr. COBLE, Mr. WEXLER, Mr. BLUNT, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. WU, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. DELAHUNT, Mr. MACK, Mr. MCCAUL, Ms. NORTON, Mr. WOLF, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut, Mr. UPTON, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. BERRY, Ms. GIFFORDS, Mr. GONZALEZ, Mr. PUTNAM, Mr. WEINER, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. COHEN, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. RADANOVICH, Mr. COOPER, Mr. DOYLE, Ms. BALDWIN, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. BUTTERFIELD, and Mr. REHBERG
 

The chilling effect of the nonstop lawsuits and crackdowns on people for downloading movies and songs concerns University of Arkansas law professor Ned Snow. His recent abstract on the issue, called Copytraps, received mention on PhysOrg for what it has done to web users.

Those who download music, for example, and believe they are doing so legally, does not matter to the courts. Copyright infringement has occurred, and the accused has to pay.

The problem as Snow sees it comes from the broader impact of "copytraps," his word for sites that indicate downloading is legal. Anyone busted for dong this comes away with reluctance to do any other downloading.

That’s where Snow sees a problem. He contends in his analysis that considering the normal First Amendment protections for exercise of speech, penalizing downloaders is unconstitutional:

That certain forms of copy-speech receive First Amendment protection implies that copyright’s strict liability punishment is unconstitutional. It is well established that the First Amendment precludes strict punishment of unprotected speech, for a possible effect of strict punishment is chilling protected speech.

Speakers may refrain from engaging in protected speech for fear that they might mistake whether the speech actually is protected. The mere possibility of such chilling, courts have held, is sufficient to rule unconstitutional strict liability punishment of unprotected speech.

Snow’s essential argument seems to be that if people are prosecuted and penalized for downloading from a "copytrap," they are unlikely to engage in any legal downloading in the future. The effect of the punishment creates a violation of the First Amendment.

We will be interested to see someone try Snow’s opinion of prior restraint as a legal defense. "Strict liability punishment of copying makes no sense in a world where copying is the architecture of being," Snow said of the Internet.

How CBS Blew Up My Puff Piece

This story began in pursuit of an ironic 300-word puff piece about somewhat of a catfight between MoveOn.org and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. WebProNews is not in the habit of dabbling in political squabbles, lest they directly involve Internet and Web issues that affect online business. We also cover Web 2.0 and blogs – the new citizen media.

In short, we didn’t have a dog in this fight, and your humble author who, just like Ferris Bueller doesn’t believe in isms, would tell you he is neither Right nor Left, but maybe, if he had to label himself, is a John Stuart Mill Utilitarianist with Thomas Paine Libertarian tendencies and a slightly Aristotelian disdain for the unwashed masses* (so maybe you shouldn’t ask).

Regardless, WebProNews becomes involved because someone at CBS allegedly (a CBS spokeswoman was quite adamant about the "allegedly" part) insulted viewers who complained about Couric’s "softball" reporting from Iraq and mocked them for getting their information from blogs.

Oh, and Katie Couric’s publicist threatened to sue us, which also gets us involved in a much bigger way, and makes this story, much, much more newsworthy, but we’ll get to that later.  

The story begins this way:

MoveOn.org posted a scathing video on YouTube accusing Couric of not doing her job as a journalist and just parroting government talking points, and encouraged MoveOn members to email CBS to complain.

One such member, Errol Siegel of Austin Texas, heeded the call and emailed CBS Evening News on Monday, September 10, at 11:42 a.m, CST. He wrote:

I started watching Couric’s series of reports hoping to learn something valuable..  All I learned was that CBS is content to produce puff pieces scripted by the institutions it purports to be investigating.

I did not hear Couric push for real answers on one single issue!  She simply took everything she was told and parrotted it back to the masses.

I’m embarassed and saddened.  You should be too.

A reply to the email appearing to be from CBS Evening News, with the address Evening@cbsnews.com, arrived just 23 minutes later reading:

Actually most intelligent people were very impressed by the quality of our reports from Iraq and Syria …Apparently you missed most of the interviews that were done over there…imagine you got your information from a blog somewhere…

Siegel tells WebProNews, "I have spent years writing letters, sending e-mails, and making phone calls. This is the first time I have been personally insulted by a major news organization."

At CrooksAndLiars.com, a commentator named Dominic Lucarelli recounts a similar response to his complaint:

Sorry you didn’t get a chance to see much of the reporting from Iraq….if you had, you wouldn’t have written such a note…imagine all your info came from a blog…too bad.

"Not TOO condescending, eh?" remarks Lucarelli.

This is all very interesting to me, only because of the irony. It wasn’t too long ago that Dan Rather was shamed off the airwaves by the very medium CBS News is allegedly disparaging. This is the same medium that even the New York Times has credited as a viable news source, as bloggers are often first on the scene at major news events; Hurricane Katrina comes to mind.

It was also interesting to me that the once "liberal media" was now being accused of being a government mouthpiece, but I was more interested in confirming whether or not a representative of CBS made those remarks, and if I could talk to Katie to get her reaction to the accusations, to talk about the new media and how the established media is handling it.

When asked about the comments in the email, CBS Evening News Communications Manager Jennifer Farley (Couric’s publicist) said, "It’s very easy to make it look like it came from us," and would not confirm that the email came from CBS News, despite the email address. 

I understood the comment, "It’s very easy to make it look like it came from us," as well as other comments she made as a denial that CBS sent the email, and so, out of professional courtesy, not out of any type of journalistic requirement, I contacted Ms. Farley the next day (before I wrote the 300-word ironic puff-piece) to confirm CBS’s position.

I did it politely, because I’m from the South, thanked her for her time and wished her a nice day. My understanding: CBS denies sending the email, cannot confirm that it came from there.

A few minutes later, Ms. Farley, by telephone, insists that everything that was said yesterday was off the record, that CBS didn’t even have a "no comment" because there was nothing to comment on, and if I printed that I could expect to hear from CBS’s legal department. Very suddenly, then, she has turned my puff piece into a major story about a major network trying to bully a Web-publication with the threat of a SLAPP suit. And I am stunned by how she has transformed something routine into something newsworthy. 

I’m also aware (because she told me) that Ms. Farley graduated top of her class from Columbia Journalism School, and was quite willing to let me know how much I had to learn about journalism, but she should be at least vaguely familiar with the First Amendment, and that a source can’t just give information and say it’s "off the record" with any type of viable legal grounds. It’s a professional courtesy, not a legal mandate, and that courtesy sort of flies out the window when lawsuits are threatened.

But enough about me and Ms. Farley. Let’s get back to the email.

MoveOn traced the IP address of the email addressed from Evening@cbsnews.com, the one that would be very easy to make look like came from CBS to 170.20.0.80, which resolves to a mail server at CBS Inc., 524 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019.

Adam Green, Civics Communications Director for MoveOn.org, says, "It’s a real problem when big media corporations like CBS refuse to ask tough questions challenging President Bush’s lies about Iraq, yet feel fine threatening little-guy online news sites for daring to hold CBS accountable."

Yeah, well, we’re not that little. We can hold our own. And though the New York Times mistakenly called me a blogger, I didn’t take any offense, just appreciated the name drop, and that at least some part of the established media recognizes the power of citizen journalism, and that the new media has the right – and ability – to stand up to the old media.

_{*Warning: Philosophical joke. It’s hard to be at once humble and Aristotelian; this is in no way a swipe at the poor or the homeless, but meant only as a way of expressing a distrust of mob rule, and therefore a preference for representative democracy rather than direct democracy.}

The speed wouldn’t be blistering, mind you, just 384K, and content would be filtered for decency just like broadcast television. In return for not auctioning off this slice of spectrum like the rest, M2Z would funnel five percent of ad revenue into the US Treasury.

Of course a proposal like this brings up a whole host of issues, and forms unlikely alliances as opposing forces object for opposing reasons. Muleta accused FCC Chairman Martin of dragging his feet, an accusation which nearly sealed an answer in the negative, despite there being no good answer for Martin in this situation.

If the FCC approves M2Z’s proposal, it has to answer to AT&T and Verizon and even to the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, made up of Free Press, Media Access Project and Consumers Union, natural opponents of telecom incumbents.

The incumbents don’t want competition offering what they offer, albeit much, much slower, for free. The PISC doesn’t want an ISP setting a precedent by being allowed to filter Web content. 

Sort of defeats the purpose of the whole Net Neutrality debate.

But if the FCC denied the proposal, it risks angering other sets of stakeholders, namely, the poor and the profanity police. Well, it’s most likely the latter the FCC’s worried about.

So, obviously, M2Z is right that it’s a complicated issue. It’s interesting, though, that just last week approval wasn’t coming fast enough, and this week, a couple of days before the deadline, we’re all being too hasty about it.

Interestingly enough, M2Z cited PISC’s filed comments that "granting the license subject to a filtering condition… raises serious First Amendment concerns as well as statutory concerns" as reason to extend the debate.

"We applaud PISC’s thoughtful and considered comments.  They’ve raised important questions to the FCC and M2Z agrees that additional time is needed for a full and informed debate on the merits of M2Z’s pending application,” said Muleta. "Unfortunately, it’s clear that the full Commission has not yet had adequate time for a full review of our extensive docket.   The public interest will not be served by a rushed decision made because of an arbitrary September 1 deadline.”

M2Z disagrees, however, that there are Constitutional concerns with offering a filtered network. The basis for that argument are precedents set by over-the-air television and radio, both of which are regulated by the FCC.

However, if you want to get persnickety about it, that is technically government regulation of speech, which walks a fine First Amendment line as it is, and is peppered with consolidated media selected messaging.

Regardless, the TV and radio is what they’re basing their argument upon.

“Similar to free-over-the-air TV, we would have no idea whether a user of the free service is 9 years old or 40 years old," said Muleta. "We also believe, and that includes our investors who are Silicon Valley leaders, that offering Americans free and family friendly broadband makes good business sense since it provides consumers more choices in the broadband market.” 

He’s probably hit closer to the heart of it there – there are investors and markets at stake. But doin-it-for-the-kids is always a powerful political tagline. Funny how it didn’t sway anybody in power when the .xxx domain was proposed and shot down by both family groups and porn peddlers, one side wanting to pretend porn didn’t exist while the other pretended they’d go out of business if they had to move.

Though the .xxx domain proposal had it’s own issues – classic ones like the difference between smut and art – at least filtering at home would have been simpler, and best of all, not centrally controlled by a distributor with a vested interest in the content you see.

Again, M2Z’s "free" broadband is not free. Nothing is free as long as it is controlled.

Though most everyone was annoyed by him, and you could hear him far beyond the designated free speech area, none would dare to trample his right to speak, and a few would engage in debate with him, or would stand across the sidewalk preaching the brilliance of David Hume instead, at competing decibels.

That’s the awkward, wonderful beauty of free speech.

But it’s not the same from country to country, or essentially from state to state, and it’s even trickier on the Web, where everything is international, and just about everything worth visiting is hosted by a larger, private entity.

They are not government entities, so they do not have to, if headquartered in the US, guarantee those inalienable rights Americans cherish, but will honor them where possible, for violating them will turn their constituents, their netizens, against them. In terms of speech, the most cherished of these inalienable rights, it’s a fine line between terms of service enforcement and censorship.

It’s an even finer line between philosophical absolutism and "just once in the name of popular condemnation." If that sounds obtuse it’s because I unsuccessfully tried to boil down something complex into a few words…where’s Hemingway when I need him? Censorship is wrong, most will agree, until a certain percentage of the population agrees what was said was heinous enough to warrant it. Free speech until the collective rejects it.

Germany doesn’t seem to care to walk these fuzzy philosophical lines. Soon after the country reportedly denied Tom Cruise a license to film because of his Scientologist evangelism, there has been a call for criminal investigation against Google and YouTube for facilitating neo-Nazi propaganda.

Not just neo-footage, but also vintage footage was uploaded by users, with anti-Semitic videos from 1940′s appearing there as well.

Everything that one might predict happened: in the comments section, most were appalled by the videos, some were neutral, based on educational and documentation reasons, and a few applauded; Google pulled the offending videos at Germany’s request; and nobody except neo-Nazis will complain because, well, nobody likes Nazis.

Al-Qaeda, too, has reportedly been taking advantage of the user-generated video craze by uploading recruiting videos to YouTube. According to this report, one lasted nearly 24 hours before YouTube took it down.

Again, nobody but terrorists are going to speak up for them.

These are extreme examples, but they are precursors to challenges ahead. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other companies have already had their run-ins with China and censorship.

Even in America, where freedom of speech is the first among rights, there will be struggles to define its limits, where it is acceptable to speak, and how loudly. But remember this: If speech on the Internet is determined by terms of service agreements set forth by private companies not only beholden to advertisers, partners and shareholders, but also to international pressures, then there will be no real freedom of speech on the Internet.

It begins with AT&T censoring Pearl Jam, Yahoo handing over information to Chinese authorities, Google bending to every country that demands it bend. Net Neutrality isn’t just about gate-keeping, it’s about fundamental rights to speak our minds whether or not others think we should, and about other people not being able to stop us from speaking our minds. But most of all, it’s about the people keeping control of their free-speech area, and keeping it open for debate.    

Is There A Reason You Are Buried On Digg?

It was quite an informative article, and I’ll try to touch on some of the main points here, but I highly suggest reading the entire post if you get the chance.

Three notable items that caught my eye have seem to have a large impact on whether or not a story makes it to the Digg frontpage:

It occurs to me that these items bear absolutely no correlation as to the quality of the story being reviewed. It seems to be all about making friends, hoping they digg your articles, and not pissing anyone off – consequently compelling them to bury your articles.

So this bears the question: Is Digg a true news site, or just a glorified social clique? Or worse, is it a vehicle for unwarranted censorship?

To answer these questions, let’s consider the example of Lee Odden, who found last month that his site had been completely banned from Digg on the premise of spamming. Lee’s Top Rank SEO Blog wasn’t the only site to suffer this penalty, but the interesting point to take note of here is that the “malicious content” in question wasn’t spam at all, not even close.

So why were these sites buried and banned? Simply because influential Diggers decided the content was “unworthy” of inclusion within their precious little sphere of social media, elitist style.

Michael Graywolf’s article outlining “Dirty Digging” goes into great detail into just exactly how Diggers can rally together to bury and ban domains for which they disapprove for seemingly arbitrary reasons. He also goes on to explain why A-list Diggers are able to get away with this type of discrimination:

It’s valid to claim that getting on the Digg frontpage comes down to a popularity contest, and I think one would have to be pretty nave to completely disregard the idea that status has a significant impact on an article’s ranking.

More than that, however, bloggers and journalists now have to live in fear of saying the wrong thing, lest they be expelled from the site altogether. All of this leaves me wondering when the First Amendment suddenly became null and void according to Digg, a place where now anyone can be squelched on a whim, so long as it pleases the elitist Diggers.

I guess at Digg, it’s liberty and justice for none.

Nevertheless, Digg is indicative of the ever-growing paradigm shift in news coverage.

News is becoming viral, socially contextual, and is increasingly less dependent on the validity/quality of the source material involved.

So, if someone with a lot of virtual charisma makes a statement like, “Google is awesome and they’re going to over the world,” he or she would stand a better chance of making it to Digg’s front page than a well-researched piece containing commentary from reputable Wall Street insiders and industry analysts, but written by someone who is isn’t a part of the clique, as it were.

And if you mention SEO in the title, you might as well prepare to be buried and most likely banned. Why? For no other reason that the Diggers just don’t like you, that’s why.

If Social Media is just going to become another vehicle for censorship and elitist agendas, then you can count me out. I’ve no interest in becoming part of Discrimination 2.0, even if it means sacrificing page clicks or name recognition, if membership requres that I cater to the socialite bureaucracy of Digg by avoiding topics whimsically decided to be “unsavory” to their sensitive reading agendas.

Perhaps I’m one of the few who actually still believes in free speech, even if I don’t agree what someone has to say.

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Joe is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

If he or the SixApart-employed author of a letter demanding the removal of a man’s last name from Pincus’ blog post had gone to journalism school, they’d both have known that in countries where freedom of the press is Constitutionally assured, that using Murry Gunty’s full name is on the list of acceptable practices.

In fact, he can use it as often as he likes. Murry Gunty, Murry Gunty, Murry Gunty, Murry Gunty. Yes, he can say anything he likes about Murry Gunty, as long as it’s a matter of public record, all the way down to his home address, and as long as it is true.

The name Murry Gunty, if there is a birth certificate, a Social Security card, or driver’s license is a matter of public record, whether Murry Gunty is a public figure or not. Printing Murry Gunty’s address would then become a matter of ethics, nothing more, which was the topic of Pincus’ original post about Murry Gunty.

Pincus didn’t print Murry Gunty’s address or contact information, nor did he tap a phone call or examine Murry Gunty’s email records. He simply retold a true story about a young man who cheated in an Ivy League business school election. The story was first told by Murry Gunty himself, in the school newspaper along with an apology.

It was later picked up by the Wall Street Journal, not because minor college club scandals are newsworthy, but because graduates of Harvard Business School go on to become Masters of the Corporate Universe, and Murry Gunty becomes the fodder for a fine discussion on Harvard’s stance on ethical business practices.

But that’s a whole other matter. The issue at hand is whether or not is it ethical, or sensible, for Typepad to attempt to censor a well known blogger after misinterpreting the company’s own terms of service. It is also important to make clear under what parameters a journalist (at the end of the day a blogger is a brand of journalist, with or without the proper training) operates.

From the SixApart letter:

Feedster founder and Ookles-promiser Scott Johnson examined Typepad’s terms of service on his blog. It doesn’t say anything about using a person’s full name, not even Mr. Gunty’s. It does mention defamation, which only applies if a statement is untrue. It also mentions contact information like phone numbers and addresses, neither of which Mr. Pincus published. Since Pincus is not in apparent violation of the ToS, was it that SixApart just didn’t want him talking about Murry Gunty?

In answer to Mr. Pincus’ question about whether a company has a legal right to stop the publication of a damning story about Murry Gunty, well, as a hosted service, they can dictate their terms of service as they see fit, as long as the story is published through their service. But it could be mighty stupid to censor a blogger. It just doesn’t look good.

If this were a court of law (I’m not a lawyer), and if Mr. Gunty wished to sue you for defamation, or just because he didn’t like what you wrote, his case would get nowhere because of the freedom of the press guaranteed by the Constitution. If it’s true, then it’s fair game.

And remember, matters of opinion cannot be argued as true or untrue. For example, when you said, “Murry was one of those annoying kids that was hated by his peers and loved by his bosses, also called suckups,” that is a matter of opinion, and is protected speech.

Just like I can say, “I think SixApart was phenomenally stupid if they tried to censor a blogger.” That’s just my opinion and I’m allowed to say it.

It has been over 48 hours since Pincus received the demand to remove Murry Gunty’s last name, and the post still remains.

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