More on Legal Issues for Bloggers: Legal Protections to Keep Jobs and Sued for Commentary
Harvard Law School alumnus and former anonymous blogger Jeremy Blachman opines on legal protections for bloggers so they can keep their jobs.
"So maybe it does make sense that the law should provide special protection for bloggers, because of the social benefits Weblogs provide. The simplest place to start would be to put the burden on employers to show actual harm, if they are firing someone because of her Weblog.
This would protect the kind of innocent revelations that bloggers … make on their sites, while still giving employers rights if their employees are revealing secrets, disclosing client and customer information or otherwise driving business away. In addition, companies should create Weblog policies that let employees know what management feels is off limits for public consumption."
The Wall Street Journal discusses the suit a company brought against search engine optimization blogger Aaron Wall for claims and comments on his weblog against the company.
Reporter David Kesmodel summarizes the complexities of the case:
"Legal analysts said the case falls into somewhat murky legal territory, but that Mr. Wall may have some protection from liability under federal law. Courts generally have held that the operators of computer message boards and mailing lists cannot be held liable for statements posted by other people. Blogs might be viewed in a similar light, they said."
July 4th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Surely a blog owner is not responsible for the views of other people.
Viacom cannot be sued for the opinions of people who it interviews on it’s different media stations, so why should a small time person be held accountable in a way big business is not?