Court order temporarily shuts down blog/website
By now I’m sure you all know that a Fond du Lac County judge has granted a temporary injunction against an Oshkosh man’s blog site, effectively shutting down the site, at least for the moment, while the case makes its way through the court system.
The judge’s order came after Winnebago County Clerk of Courts Diane Fremgen filed a civil suit against Full of Bologna.com operator Dennis Payne, Payne’s business and an anonymous poster on that blog/website for libel and libel per se. The suit was precipitated by remarks made on that site of a sexual and vulgar nature, which Fremgen claims are damaging to her reputation, defamatory in nature and that were made and published with malice.
Since the March 30 judgment there has been much talk, not just about the remarks and the subsequent suit, but the judge’s order, how it infringes upon our First Amendment rights and what it means in both the short- and long-term for Internet blogging. Frankly I have not had much time to look at the court documents on this case, much less do any research in this area. But from the way it sounds there’s very little if anything out there to compare to this case, apples to apples. So it will likely be a precedent-setting case in many respects.
As I stated in an interview with the Oshkosh Northwestern the day after the injunction was granted, I don’t know that shutting down the entire site was the best approach for this judge to take. It seems, at least at first blush and without knowing the full extent of the comments the lawsuit was based upon and in how many places on the blog site in question such comments were made, that perhaps the offending comments could have just been ordered removed and the site left to remain operational, but with certain restrictions.
On the other hand, why did Mr. Payne not remove them in the first place on his own? I think most of us operating such sites try to monitor comments from people – both registered users and anonymous posters – fairly closely. Admittedly some of us will not allow people to go as far as others do, and whether that’s good or bad, right or wrong, there may well come a time when we all have to be somewhat unified in how we deal with postings that could be considered libelous or otherwise harmful and damaging in nature.
Judging by what I have seen on other sites already, I can say that some blog administrators are more outraged than I am about the judge’s ruling. Again, I think it could possibly have been handled a little differently, but then again I wasn’t sitting on the bench with him and can’t say how he determined his ruling.
What I can say for certain is there has already been a change in the way people are posting and what they’re saying when they do. People seem to be shying away from posting in some instances and when they do they seem to be a little more guarded. Please understand, I am not advocating people having their First Amendment rights stripped from them; far from it, in fact. But being guaranteed the freedom of speech does not give anyone the right to maliciously slander or libel someone either – whether they are in public office, the public eye or not well-known at all. There have to be some controls on what is and isn’t said about people. If that is the end result of this suit, is that necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so.
- Cheryl
The judge’s order came after Winnebago County Clerk of Courts Diane Fremgen filed a civil suit against Full of Bologna.com operator Dennis Payne, Payne’s business and an anonymous poster on that blog/website for libel and libel per se. The suit was precipitated by remarks made on that site of a sexual and vulgar nature, which Fremgen claims are damaging to her reputation, defamatory in nature and that were made and published with malice.
Since the March 30 judgment there has been much talk, not just about the remarks and the subsequent suit, but the judge’s order, how it infringes upon our First Amendment rights and what it means in both the short- and long-term for Internet blogging. Frankly I have not had much time to look at the court documents on this case, much less do any research in this area. But from the way it sounds there’s very little if anything out there to compare to this case, apples to apples. So it will likely be a precedent-setting case in many respects.
As I stated in an interview with the Oshkosh Northwestern the day after the injunction was granted, I don’t know that shutting down the entire site was the best approach for this judge to take. It seems, at least at first blush and without knowing the full extent of the comments the lawsuit was based upon and in how many places on the blog site in question such comments were made, that perhaps the offending comments could have just been ordered removed and the site left to remain operational, but with certain restrictions.
On the other hand, why did Mr. Payne not remove them in the first place on his own? I think most of us operating such sites try to monitor comments from people – both registered users and anonymous posters – fairly closely. Admittedly some of us will not allow people to go as far as others do, and whether that’s good or bad, right or wrong, there may well come a time when we all have to be somewhat unified in how we deal with postings that could be considered libelous or otherwise harmful and damaging in nature.
Judging by what I have seen on other sites already, I can say that some blog administrators are more outraged than I am about the judge’s ruling. Again, I think it could possibly have been handled a little differently, but then again I wasn’t sitting on the bench with him and can’t say how he determined his ruling.
What I can say for certain is there has already been a change in the way people are posting and what they’re saying when they do. People seem to be shying away from posting in some instances and when they do they seem to be a little more guarded. Please understand, I am not advocating people having their First Amendment rights stripped from them; far from it, in fact. But being guaranteed the freedom of speech does not give anyone the right to maliciously slander or libel someone either – whether they are in public office, the public eye or not well-known at all. There have to be some controls on what is and isn’t said about people. If that is the end result of this suit, is that necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so.
- Cheryl
posted by Cheryl Hentz at 11:41 PM
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