Community Website Faces Libel Case

American libel laws could come in for a shake-up as a woman has launched a suit against a community news website.

The complainant is suing a citizen media website based in Vermont regarding a comment posted by someone she worked for at the local emergency medical services, reports the Brattleboro Reformer.

According to her attorney, the plaintiff has launched the lawsuit against both her former boss and the owners of iBrattleboro.com for "intentional infliction of emotional distress".

Lawyer Margot Stone stated that the posted comment "was heartbreaking" for her client.

She added: "It was not truthful. It meets all the qualifications for defamation.

"He said those terrible things, he meant them and he never retracted them - nor did the Internet site retract or apologise."

The website owners, Chris Grotke and Lise LePage, refused to respond to the specific case but in a general statement Grotke said: "Our policy is pretty clear that if anyone has any problem with anything put up there, they can contact us and we'll take it down.

"In general, people have to stand by what they write. We can't be the police for everybody in town. All we do is provide the platform for this communication."

Stone asserted that Grotke and LePage are likely to use as their defence the fact that comments are not screened or moderated prior to publication, but noted: "I'm not sure that will be enough to avoid some degree of liability."

The Reformer suggests that their liability could depend upon a developing area of American libel law concerning whether citizen media sites should be held as accountable as their professional counterparts.

At present the Federal Communications Decency Act (CDA) states that no provider of interactive online services should be treated as the speaker of information provided by someone else, but some judges believe this clause needs to be altered.

New media attorney Eric Sinrod told the Reformer that websites which are very actively involved in providing content as well as hosting it may find themselves coming close to losing their immunity under the CDA.

LePage and Grotke have posted a comment about the case on their website: "We believe the suit to be without merit and will be taking appropriate legal action.

"Thanks all, for your support recently and over the last four years. We look forward to telling you more as soon as we're legally able."

Further details on this story can be found at the Citizen Media Law Project.