Free Speech vs. Libel: Who Wins?
Last week, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) announced a new set of rules to govern bloggers with a connection to any company selling a product they are writing about. So, how far will the government go? Right now, it’s unclear, but the guidelines could extend to regulate posts people make on Facebook and other social networking sites.
So what does this mean for our 1st amendment rights?
• The government will have the ability to further dictate the parameters of individual communication via the Internet.
• Several new questions arise about what exactly constitutes blogola and disclosure. (For those unblog-savvy types, “blogola” refers to posts made by bloggers who have been given some sort of incentive to post about a product.) Should the disclosure be written in the post or can it be in the bloggers “about me” page? Is blogola really that different than traditional forms of advertisement and promotion?
However, here at IMI, we do believe that there are two sides to every story:
• Libel is illegal. Defamation is illegal. Do they still happen frequently? Yes. Do they happen on the Web? Way too often, but it’s not rigorously regulated online at the moment. These new regulations will hold people responsible for their blog posts, which is a logical extension of current laws surrounding these concepts.
• Has anyone ever posted anything nasty about you or someone you know on ripoffreport.com, juicycampus.com, etc.? These sites continue to pop up every day, constantly grow in usage and exposure, and have significantly injured the reputations and careers of many.
So, what’s fair? What do YOU think? We’re interested, let us know…
Tags: 1st Amendment, Bloggers, Blogging, Blogola, Facebook, Federal Trade Commission, First Amendment, Free Speech, FTC, Libel, online marketing, SMO, social marketing, Social Media, Social media marketing, social media optimization, social networking, social networking sites, Twitter
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Blogs, Brand Consulting, Industry Innovation, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Social media Strategy, The Internet Marketing Business, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 17th, 2009 at 1:39 am
In a nutshell, in 2005 my husband was arrested. in 2007 he was tried by in a court of law and acquitted of all charges by a jury. An ex-neighbor took it upon himself to create, in my opinion, a slanderous and harassing web site http://www.preventmurder.org. Posted on this site were Official Court Documents that were altered in order to defame my husband. Also posted are countless lies that we can absolutely prove to be untrue. This ex-neighbor has filed a civil right law suit in Federal Court naming my husband and half the Officials in the State of Califorina including a D.A., Sheriff, B.O.S., Assemblymen, Superior Court Judge and many more as defendants. I am tired of his slander and harassment on the Internet. What can I do about it?
January 26th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
srry u cant do anything about it… i can post and host content that is not dictated by the laws of the united states… best thing to do is to ignore it.. since nobodyt is looking for this content it prolly never gets seen….