Computers, Privacy & the Constitution

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MahaAtalFirstPaper 4 - 26 Mar 2009 - Main.JonathanBonilla
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The Freedom of the Press is Guaranteed to Those who Strive for One

By MahaAtal - 09 Mar 2009
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 On a final note, though I suppose we are not obliged to address Eben's arguments in our essays, it seems to me that this essay can't avoid discussing the idea Eben proposed to us in class--- that the Press is not people, the Press is the machine. It is the machine that the First Amendment frees, and so accordingly, he who controls the machine (in the new age, all of us) is as free as any other man to speak. It seems faintly ridiculous, given this suggestion, to imagine that the writers of our Constitution had anything other in mind than the printing press when they laid down this clause; it is even more ridiculous, I think, to imagine that the Constitution can support the sort of subjective and self-serving distinctions that this essay proposes.

-- DanaDelger - 22 Mar 2009 \ No newline at end of file

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Dana: You are correct that libel already may be applied to an individual who is not a part of the traditional "press". However, as this typically occurs in the context of an online publication, there already are additional federal safeguards: 47 USC §230. This law immunizes any user of an "interactive computer service" (broadly defined) from being considered a "publisher", for libel purposes, if this user did not create / develop the information. Barrett v. Rosenthal.

I think the lack of widespread lawsuits against facebook pages, then, is likely a result more of what Dana noted - harm / reward analysis. But they do happen: Dendrite v. Doe where a company sued to find out the identity of a person who posted negative comments about the company on a Yahoo! message board.

-- JonathanBonilla - 25 Mar 2009


Revision 4r4 - 26 Mar 2009 - 04:16:53 - JonathanBonilla
Revision 3r3 - 22 Mar 2009 - 22:19:45 - DanaDelger
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