On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on behalf of controversial alt-right writer Milo Yiannopoulos, a decision that surprised and upset many. The organization claims that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) violated Yiannopoulos’ right to free speech by removing ads for his new book from the transit system. The ads were not removed until after people had complained about them.

Yiannopoulos, the outspoken Breitbart editor, has made controversial comments about many groups, including feminists, women, trans people, and gay people. Ironically, he’s slammed the ACLU in the past.

The ACLU routinely defends the First Amendment rights of people not sharing its political views, which lean to the left. The organization has so far tended to be critical of the Trump Administration. But it also makes a point of defending the constitutional rights of everyone, regardless of ideology. “When we give government the power to regulate speakers based on their identity or their perceived level of offense, it reduces speech for all of us,” Lee Rowland, a staff attorney at the ACLU, pointed out.

But the decision to defend Milo–a man who has said that transgender people are mentally ill and that feminism is a cancer–was too much even for some people working at the ACLU. On Wednesday, attorney Chase Strangio posted a statement criticizing the decision on Twitter.

“Milo preys on the deep-seated hatred for Black people, other people of color, trans people, immigrants, Muslim people and women that is sadly a central tenet of our social fabric and political system,” Strangio wrote. “He is vile. And I am sorry for any platform and validation that he receives.”

Here is my personal statement on today’s ACLU lawsuit defending that horrible person. I speak only for myself. pic.twitter.com/4KzsoqnmUn

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) August 9, 2017

A lot of people seemed to agree with Strangio and many longtime supporters declared that they do not see the point in working with someone who is so hateful against so many.

You have literally no reason to include him in this case except to grab headlines and milk his fans for donation dollars.

— Lulu Diavolo (@SatansJacuzzi) August 9, 2017

As a long-time ACLU supporter, I could not possibly disagree more. What a wrong-headed position. https://t.co/j96WlB8gtN

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 10, 2017

But others saw the value in always standing up for First Amendment rights.

I cannot STAND this guy. But he has the right to speak, just like we all do.

— Deletrix (@DeletrixV) August 10, 2017

Arthur Spitzer, who is acting as lead counsel on the case, said that it is important to keep defending the constitutional rights of even those who are seen as the most despicable. “We always get some when we defend unpopular people. When we recently supported the Redskins’ right to keep their registered trademarks, we got similar reactions, internally and externally,” he said.

After Strangio’s statement went public, some questioned how it’s okay for him to express views that run counter to his employer’s. Spitzer said the ACLU has 1,000 employees and that it would be impossible for everyone to agree on every case they take. He said all employees and board members can always use their right to free speech to state their opinions, as long as they are clear that it’s their personal opinion and not that of the ACLU, which Strangio did.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post ACLU Attorney Criticizes Decision to Work With Milo Yiannopoulos appeared first on Law Street.

The Reddit user who edited and spread the now-famous video clip of President Donald Trump wrestling a person with a CNN logo for a head has issued an apology. The user goes by the name “HanA**holeSolo,” and wrote a lengthy post apologizing to the whole Reddit community.

“I am in no way this kind of person. I love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so my entire life,” he wrote.

He went on to say that he does not support any kind of violence and that he posted hateful, controversial posts to get attention from other users. This then became a form of addiction, as he wanted to see how far he could go.

“Free speech is a right we all have, but it shouldn’t be used in the manner that it was in the posts that were put on this site,” he said.

Redditor HanAssholeSolo, the guy who posted the Trump/CNN clip the president tweeted, has apologized to @CNN, the media, and others pic.twitter.com/GlePoiSlFj

— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) July 4, 2017

The user has since deleted his account, so the statement is no longer available. But a lot of people are questioning whether the apology is sincere, or if it’s just another step in the “trolling.” Some pointed out that the apology didn’t come until after CNN had tracked down and identified the user.

On the other hand, a lot of people criticized CNN and accused the media network of blackmail after it published an article about how its journalists tracked down the Reddit user. In the article, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski wrote that HanA**holeSolo was identified through a Facebook search using information he had written himself on Reddit.

When Kaczynski tried contacting him, he got no reply. But on Tuesday, HanA**holeSolo posted his apology. After that, HanA**holeSolo contacted CNN to confirm his identity and expressed that he was nervous about being exposed. CNN wrote:

CNN is not publishing ‘HanA**holeSolo’s’ name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again.

It followed up with, “CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.” A lot of people on the right took that as a threat and started using the hashtag #CNNBlackmail.

If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 5, 2017

However, Kaczynski said in a tweet that HanA**holeSolo had called him to say that he completely agrees with the article’s statement, and that he did not perceive anything it said as a threat.

The user has previously posted things on the pro-Trump subreddit The_Donald that makes it hard for some to believe that the apology is sincere. In June, he posted a chart of CNN employees with Jewish Stars of David next to their images, writing, “Something strange about CNN…can’t quite put my finger on it.”

On Sunday, he wrote “F**k ISLAM,” and commented on a photo of refugees, “There’s a MOAB (Mother of All Bomb’s) for that.” Reportedly, he also frequently used slurs to describe African-Americans, women, and Muslims. He has also attacked Black Lives Matter, feminism, Islam, liberals, and the state of Maryland.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A Milo Yiannopoulos supporter filed a lawsuit on Monday against regents of the University of California, Berkeley for $23 million. Kiara Robles, the plaintiff, says the school infringed on her First Amendment rights when a protest erupted on campus last February.

The protest, which drew over 1,500 students, was a response to the controversial invitation the Berkeley College Republicans student group sent to Yiannopoulos, asking him to speak at the campus. Yiannopoulos, a long-standing fan of President Donald Trump and a self-described cultural libertarian, is a former senior editor of alt-right media source Breitbart.

He gained prominence because of his highly controversial comments on women, Islam, homosexuality, and religion. He once said “gay rights have made us dumber” and called transgender people mentally ill.

Robles was pepper-sprayed during the Berkeley protest and says she and her friends were targeted during the clash because they hold and express conservative views. She was planning on attending Yiannopoulos’ talk before the Berkeley police department canceled the event citing security concerns.

More peaceful protests mad at capitalism. #miloatcal pic.twitter.com/1qrdJ5zeJ8

— Kiara Robles ಠ_ಠ (@kiarafrobles) February 2, 2017

https://twitter.com/kiarafrobles/status/827418775230099456

The lawsuit states that the defendants, which includes local law enforcement, billionaire George Soros, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for allegedly institutionalizing Robles’ concerns, have subjected “students and invitees who do not subscribe to the radical, left wing philosophies … to severe violence and bodily harm for merely expressing a differing viewpoint.”

“She was assaulted,” Robles’ lawyer told The San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday. “The California university system, and in part, Berkeley, is out of control, and they’re facilitating, if not inciting, violence, and the campus police sit around twiddling their thumbs.”

The university said in a statement that it will mount a strong defense “contesting this collection of false claims.”

This lawsuit comes at a time when freedom of speech debates are increasingly common on college campuses and the media. Liberal students’ requests for “safe spaces” and outright bans on perceived hate speech have raised questions regarding whether or not other students’ freedom of expression rights are being curtailed.

Hitting at the heart of the debate and opposing Robles, Jonathan Gow, a UC Berkeley sophomore, said “when it’s hate speech, our free speech is to shut him down,” about the Yiannopoulos protests at Berkeley.

Last Friday, late-night talk show host Bill Maher, who said he would soon invite Yiannopoulos back on his show, was caught up in a similar controversy when he said the N-word on live television. Many outraged viewers called for his show to be canceled or for him to step down, while others said self-censorship of this word placed a limitation on individual freedom of speech.

Yiannopoulos has often found himself at the center of these debates, on and off campuses. Recently, he announced he would resort to self-publishing his new book “Dangerous” after the provocateur lost his controversial Simon and Schuster book deal when videos surfaced of him seemingly defending pedophilia. On Tuesday, the book was at the top of Amazon’s best-seller list in the humor category.

Celia Heudebourg

Celia Heudebourg is an editorial intern for Law Street Media. She is from Paris, France and is entering her senior year at Macalester College in Minnesota where she studies international relations and political science. When she’s not reading or watching the news, she can be found planning a trip abroad or binge-watching a good Netflix show. Contact Celia at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Milo Yiannopoulos Fan Sues UC Berkeley Over Violent February Protests appeared first on Law Street.

Do you love to bash bad companies and restaurants on Yelp? You’d better be careful, because now you could be sued for posting a negative review online.

Over the past few months there has been a surge in businesses suing Yelp reviewers for nasty reviews. In February, a Texas couple was sued for leaving a negative review of a pet sitting company. In the review, the clients cited difficulty contacting their pet sitters as well as confusing fees as some of the reasons they did not enjoy their experience. After the review was posted, the pet sitting company brought a lawsuit against the clients for over $6,700. The reason for the lawsuit? Apparently the couple had signed a non-disparagment agreement in their contract.

This instance of Yelp legal trouble was not the first of its kind. Around a year ago, a New Yorker visited a local dentist and had a negative experience. The woman, Mary Rohs, claims she had to wait over an hour and was then greeted by a curt and dismissive dentist, Dr. Nima Dayani. According to court records, Dr. Dayani has a different account of Rohs’ appointment than she does, claiming that she was in the office for an extended period of time as a part of her thorough exam. Two days after Rohs posted the negative review, Dr. Dayani sued her, saying the review was defamatory. He claimed that he generally welcomes positive and negative reviews, but Rohs’ went too far:

[Rohs] accsued me of malpractice by saying I didn’t diagnose her. When you are publicly accusing someone of malpractice, you are damaging their reputation.

In response to the increase in lawsuits, Yelp has stepped in to warn its users. In several circumstances, the company has issued warning banners on companies’ pages on its site that read:

Consumer Alert: Questionable Legal Threats

This business may be trying to abuse the legal system in an effort to stifle free speech, including issuing questionable legal threats against reviewers. As a reminder, reviewers who share their experiences have a First Amendment right to express their opinions on Yelp.

An example can be found on a moving and storage company’s page, yet another company that has an ongoing legal battle with a customer for defamation. Yelp wants to make sure users are aware of the potential trouble they could get into with posting negative reviews.

This increased concern for consumer safety comes alongside some consumer-oriented legislation being introduced in Congress. The Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 was introduced this April and works to ban gag clauses–portions of contracts that prohibit signers from speaking negatively about a business–from consumer-business contracts. The act also aims to protect the right of the consumer to speak freely about a company. The bill still has a long way to go, but would be a step in the right direction as far as protection of consumer free speech goes.

While it may seem scary that you could be sued for expressing your opinion online, it is important to remember that these cases are not super common. Part of the reason that legislation against these suits is just now developing is that this type of lawsuit is so new in the litigation sphere. Rest assured that your freedom of speech is still protected and that you will, most likely, not be sued for your next disparaging taco bell review.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

The post Yelp Users Getting Sued for Negative Reviews appeared first on Law Street.

Angela Gui, the daughter of a Hong Kong publisher who went missing seven months ago is now appealing to the United States for help. On Tuesday, Gui testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which is currently investigating China’s efforts to silence people who are critical of the government.

In her testimony, Angela Gui claimed that China has been acting illegally beyond its borders by imprisoning her father without trial or reason. She notes that this is particularly troubling because her father, Gui Minhai, actually has Swedish citizenship, not Chinese. He moved to Sweden to study in the 1980s and during his time there she was born.

Gui Minhai, 51, ran a publishing house in Hong Kong and wrote gossip books critical of China’s political elite. He disappeared from his vacation home in Thailand last November. Angela Gui said she had no idea where he was, but that she received messages from her father telling her to keep quiet about what happened to him.

Then, three months after he went missing, he appeared in tears on Chinese state television, saying he had turned himself in for a drunk driving incident that occurred years earlier, and that Sweden should stop looking for him. He also said that his roots would always be in China.

None of this made sense to Angela Gui. In the hearing on Tuesday, she said:

In his so-called confession my father says he traveled to China voluntarily, but if this is true, then why is there no record of him having left Thailand?…Only a state agency, acting coercively and against both international and China’s own law could achieve such a disappearance.

The Swedish government’s own investigation hasn’t produced any results, so she urged the United States to pressure China “to make sure that Chinese authorities are not allowed to carry out illegal operations on foreign soil.”

See her full speech below:

In full: Daughter of ‘abducted’ bookseller Gui Minhai testifies at US hearing https://t.co/ATLH2xNvcjhttps://t.co/FWjgTc11sU

— Hong Kong Free Press (@HongKongFP) May 25, 2016

Gui Minhai is not the only bookseller to suspiciously go missing like this. Since last October, as many as four of his colleagues have been through the same ordeal–all of them later appeared on Chinese state television admitting to various crimes and claiming to have turned themselves in.

One of them, Lee Bo, was allegedly taken from Hong Kong by police from the Chinese mainland, a move that would constitute a breach of the treaty between Hong Kong and China. In his confession video, Lee Bo even renounced his British citizenship and asked people to stop searching for him, just like Gui Minhai. Republican congressman Chris Smith, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said on Tuesday:

The methods used by Beijing to enforce a code of silence are going global…The heavy hand of the Chinese government has expanded beyond its borders to intimidate and stifle critical discussion of the Chinese government’s human rights record and repressive policies.

The Swedish embassy in Beijing has repeatedly requested to visit Gui Minhai but has not been allowed to since February 24.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Daughter of Missing Hong Kong Publisher Appeals to Congress For Help appeared first on Law Street.

In the United States last month, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints made headlines for committing food stamp fraud. The infamous cult, which the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to as “white supremacist, homophobic, antigovernment, [and] totalitarian,” has practiced polygamy and sexual abuse for years but the evidence of the food stamp case may be the key to shutting the organization down for good. Without lucky breaks like this food stamp case, law enforcement often has difficulty effectively disbanding cults.

Identifying a cult in the first place is often a difficult task, as the line between freedom to practice religion and illegal activity shifts depending on different cultural traditions. Members of cults rarely want to share information with the authorities which makes building a criminal case incredibly difficult.

However, eliminating cults should not be considered an impossible task. Consider the case of Israel. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has recently introduced an anti-cult law designed to dismantle New Age sects of Judaism that are considered explosive forces within the country by the lawmakers trying to regulate them. Take a look at that situation in Israel and how other countries have handled cults in the past in comparison with the proposed Israeli law.

Spotlight on Israel: The Knesset’s Decision

Israel’s proposed bill was put forward by Orly Levy-Abecassis, a Member of the Knesset from the Yisrael Beytenu party. Levy-Abecassis has been committed to dismantling cults for some time now, as evidenced by her 2014 protest of homeschooling. She argued that homeschooling could shelter cults, allowing them to corrupt younger generations and evade the gaze of Social Services ministries that monitor children’s health.

The proposed law defines a cult as any group that:

Rallies around a person or an idea, in a way that there is exploitation, dependency, authority, or emotional distress experienced by one or more members, uses methods of mind control or controlling patterns of behavior, and operates in an organized, systematic, and sustained fashion, while committing crimes under Israeli law that are felonies or sexual offenses or serious violence.

The bill also labels the act of leading a cult as an offense punishable by up to ten years in prison. The Ministry of Welfare would be tasked with compiling a database of information about members, leaders, and practices of cults. The final segment of the bill asks for the establishment of a department dedicated to helping victims of cult abuse. If this bill is passed into law, it will be the first Israeli statute to distinguish cults from other religious groups that enjoy protection under freedom of religion clauses.

There have been a series of high profile court cases involving cults in Israel over the past several years. In 2014, accused cult leader Goel Ratzon was sentenced to 30 years in prison in October 2014 for a slew of sex crimes but escaped persecution for a count of slavery. One of his former “wives” was interviewed immediately after the court’s decision and said:

It seems that in the State of Israel, pimps, people who pimp other peoples’ body and soul, can continue to do so…they have the right – because there is no law and there is no justice.

There have also been allegations against a man named Rabbi Aharon Ramati for cult behavior. Ramati was arrested and then moved to house arrest but his sentence was relatively short. Parents of the young women who have joined Ramati’s cult argue that the girls are being brainwashed and kept against their will in squalid living conditions but because the cult members are all adults, the Israeli state has virtually no power to intervene. Unless they can compile sufficient proof of crimes on Ramati’s part, joining the cult is legally considered to be a choice that anyone is entitled to make.

International Impact

While the bill is designed to target groups within the borders of Israel, it could potentially be used to condemn Jewish cults throughout the world. One such alleged cult would be the Lev Tahor sect, an anti-Zionist cult that opposes homosexuality, birth control and evolution, and has expanded from Canada into Guatemala. Canadian officials have connected Lev Tahor to dozens of cases of child abuse, human trafficking and forgery and there are no signs that the cult has planned to shut down those practices within their new operation in Guatemala. There are fears that Lev Tahor may become increasingly violent in future years, becoming a threat to both the Israeli community and the greater population. Lev Tahor does not currently exist within Israel and Israel’s bill only applies within national borders, but the rise of the cult has concerned Jewish leaders, no doubt contributing to the impetus to pass a formal anti-cult law.

How do Different Nations Deal with Cults?

Israel is not the only country that is host to a variety of cults.  Different legal systems and law enforcement agencies deal with cults in a variety of ways across the globe.

The United States

U.S. law enforcement has historically struggled with regulating cults because of a hesitancy to violate First Amendment rights. Authorities have to wait until they have sufficient evidence to file criminal charges, which sometimes results in cults being designated criminal organizations. During the latter half of the twentieth century, a host of cults dominated American headlines–the Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, the People’s Temple–but just because many of these high profile cults were destroyed does not mean that cult worship is not alive and well in America. The Children of God (now known as Family International) is an active cult that continues to operate in the United States today. Individual leaders and members have been charged with criminal offenses, but never enough to permanently shut down the organizations.

France

In contrast, the French government has actively sought to disband cults and has even created a “cult-fighting” unit within its law enforcement branch of government. While France runs across the same difficulty defining cults that the U.S. has, the French government did take the time to create a list of ten cult characteristics in 1995 which has proved important for legal cases against cults. The same commission that published that list also put together a set of 173 organizations that it considers to be cults–including Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Scientology.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, new religious groups are emerging that Indonesian authorities are tentatively labeling cults or “deviant sects.” Movements such as Gafatar isolate their members from mainstream society, asking them to follow a charismatic leader and subject themselves a religious hierarchy that controls their lives. Indonesian law allows the government to control religion in the public sphere but does not extend into the private lives of Indonesian citizens. Sects such as Gafatar have come under attack from religious majorities, inspiring outcry from the international human rights community. At this point, it is difficult to identify whether Gafatar is a cult with the same violent potential as those that existed in America several decades ago or if it is simply an emergent religion. Gafatar subscribes to some of the characteristics included on the French commission’s 1995 list but is not as clearly cult-like as an organization like the Branch Davidians. The Indonesian government should be able to monitor the group but cannot take direct action to disband it unless there is evidence of criminal activity.

Conclusion

In the twenty-first century, cults are an uncomfortable reminder of the most archaic and brutal aspects of major religions. As mainstream religious institutions adapt with time and become more open to equality and change, these organizations remain in the past, controlling their members through mental and physical abuse. Bringing the leadership of cults to justice is a priority for law enforcement but it is difficult to disband cults without causing an uproar over the violation of the right to freedom of religion. Israel’s proposed legislation could have lasting effects not only within Israeli borders but beyond, setting a standard for condemning hate speech and brainwashing around the world. However, persecuting cults is a difficult task as the very act of defining them is controversial. Organizations such as the Church of Scientology and the Hare Krishna movement have been labeled cults in some countries and acceptable religions in others. Bills like the one the Knesset is considering take on the blurred lines between religious freedom and criminal activity in a public forum that world governments have historically skirted around.

Resources

Vice News: Polygamist Cult Has Been Running a Major Food Stamp Scam

Daily Beast: Israel’s Cult Crackdown Could Snare Yoga, Rabbis, and Meditation

Times of Israel: MKs Bid to Tackle ‘Harmful Cults’ That Ensnare 20,000 Israelis. But it’s Not so Simple

The Jerusalem Post: Committee on the Rights of the Child: More regulations on homeschooling

The Jerusalem Post: Law and Order: Cult-Busting Bill Gets Ministerial Approval

YNet News: Suspected Ramati Cult Re-emerges

NPR: Dogged By Controversy, A Jewish Sect Is On The Move Again

US News and World Report: How to Address Indonesia’s Religious Cults

Rappler: As Religious Cults Emerge in Indonesia, How Should Gov’t Deal?

Slate: Cult Busters: How Governments Decide if a Religion is Real or Not

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Israel’s Battle to Dismantle Cults: An Inspiration for the Rest of the World? appeared first on Law Street.

A controversial new bill that would have banned Missouri student athletes from striking was abruptly withdrawn Wednesday after public backlash called the restrictive legislation unconstitutional.

Republican state Representative Rick Brattin withdrew the bill (without comment) that he and co-sponsor state Representative Kurt Bahr had submitted Friday. If approved, the legislation would have revoked a scholarship from any student athlete that “calls, incites, supports, or participates in any strike or concerted refusal to play a scheduled game.”

The proposal was in direct response to a massive strike at the University of Missouri, where over 30 football players refused to participate in any football activities until the university’s System President Tim Wolfe resigned. Wolfe had been deemed unfit by students after mishandling a series of racist incidents on campus.

The team arrived at the decision to strike after graduate student Jonathan Butler’s life-threatening hunger strike failed to provoke any action from the university. On November 7, Sophomore safety Anthony Sherrils announced the strike on Twitter in a message that read,

The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere’ We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences. WE ARE UNITED

We’re black. Black is powerful. Our struggle may look different, but we are all #ConcernedStudent1950 pic.twitter.com/obCjSWCFVY

— HeMadeAKing (@1Sherrils_2MIZZ) November 8, 2015

Three days later Wolfe resigned, and as a result the team did not miss a scheduled a game.

Bahr told the Kansas City Star that the incident prompted him to re-examine the relationship between student-athletes and the universities where they play. Bahr said,

Kansas State Rep. Brandon Ellington, however, disagreed. The Democratic legislative black caucus chair said in a statement to the AP, “this unconstitutional legislation never should have been filed in the first place.” Ellington also applauded Brattin’s decision to withdraw the bill saying,

Seeking to punish those who peacefully take a stand against racial injustice violates not only the constitutional right to free speech but the values we hold as Missourians. Given the overwhelmingly negative response to his misguided and offensive proposal, I hope Representative Brattin finally understands that.

But the unfortunate thing is, Brattin and Bahr will probably never understand how offensive the proposal was. These men attempted to take away students’ fundamental rights to freedom of speech and assembly, because they’d rather Missouri players be on the field getting physical than standing up for something political. If they keep this up, Missouri may run into some issues recruiting quality players in the future.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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They say “Art is what you can get away with,” but how does one know when they’ve crossed the line? That was the essential question at the recent panel discussion “After Charlie: What’s next for art, satire, and censorship?” The event, co-hosted by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and PEN American Center and held at FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall in New York, was mediated by WNYC’s Leonard Lopate and featured four political cartoonists and journalists: Art Spiegelman, Molly Crabapple, Emmanuel “Manu” Letouzé, and Françoise Mouly.

I went in thinking that it was going to be a depressing evening as I listened to the panelists rehash the horrible events that happened in Paris last month, and more recently in Copenhagen, but they turned out to be a very insightful yet comical group of people. (They are cartoonists after all!)

The event was not meant to focus on the tragedy but rather on the future of art and journalism. The reason behind terrorist attacks like the one on Charlie Hebdo is to attempt to reshape what journalists write. Especially after these kinds of incidents, satirical journalists may feel pressure from two sources of censorship: censorship under the law and a form of self-censorship in which they may subconsciously feel inclined to censor their work to protect others’ feelings.

This doesn’t appear to be an issue for the particular panelists who spoke here. Spiegelman, who has drawn a number of covers for the New Yorker, even went so far as to say that political correctness is one of his pet peeves. The main inspiration behind the Taliban attack on Charlie Hebdo was the publication’s tendency to depict the Muslim prophet, Mohammed. “I would have no interest in drawing the prophet unless someone told me I couldn’t,” explained Spiegelman.

Courtesy of PEN American Center via Flickr.

Crabapple, my personal favorite speaker of the night, claimed art is different from written journalism in that it “can be yanked out of context” and it only “irritates assholes.” At the same time, she said that “context is over for media,” due to the fact that most of it is now consumed online via social media. However, that certainly does not stop her from stirring controversy–it even makes it better for her. One of the most controversial comics she ever made–she said she even got death threats as a result of it–was one that she drew of Guantanamo Bay. She wasn’t allowed to draw the faces of anyone who works there, so she substituted the guards’ faces with smiley faces. On one side of the fence some of them are drinking and fooling around, while on the other side some are force-feeding a prisoner. The prisoner, however, is depicted with a normal face, as opposed a smiley face. Above she writes, “It Don’t Gitmo Better Than This.” She described Guantanamo Bay as “one of the most censored places in the world” and finds it amusing that people were so upset that she “was misrepresenting the wonderful place that is Guantanamo Bay.”

There’s a distinct difference, however, between the way that French and American cultures react to controversial comics like these. Editor and art director of the the New Yorker, Mouly, could attest to that explaining that in U.S. there’s a sort of “fear of the cartoonist,” while cartoons in France are a more ubiquitous form of journalism. Also the U.S. has a different “tradition of the free press” in that secularism is so ingrained into our politics. For example, the French are unable to understand why it’s so important what religion a politician is or whether or not he’s had an affair. Mouly’s husband Spiegelman agreed, claiming that “Steven Colbert and John Stewart are the closest thing the U.S. has to cartoonists.” 

French-born Manu attested to experiencing such a cultural divide himself, claiming that American publications have been “surprised that I would use a cartoon for such a serious [news] publication.” Manu probably had the most first-hand experience with this as not only had he met some of the cartoonists at Charlie, but also grew up dreaming of drawing for the publication. In fact, after the attacks he made a tribute cartoon that read “They killed my idols.”

My favorite part of the night was the panel’s analysis of various New Yorker covers from over the years, many of which were drawn by Spiegelman. The New Yorker’s covers are the most analogous to the work in Charlie Hebdo of all American cartoons. And now with the internet, their impact on history has become even more apparent. Remember the cover with Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie from June 2013 when gay marriage was passed in New York? What about the satirical covers of President Obama during his 2008 campaign run? While not nearly as subversive, New Yorker covers are an ingrained part of American history just as Charlie‘s are for French culture.

One Charlie cover however, reminded me of a recent cover of Paper magazine featuring a certain pop culture celebrity. The 1978 cover features “the ass of a Jewish woman,” as the headline roughly translates. And even though it’s only a drawing, Charlie seems to take it a step further than Kim K by including pubic hair at the crotch.

Courtesy of PEN American Center via Flickr.

As Spiegelman perfectly summed it up: “Cartoons are really primitive language.” In a lot ways you can get away with being more controversial with a drawing than with words or even photographs. While words can be taken out of context too, art definitely leaves more to the reader’s imagination. So in a way, “Je suis Charlie” makes sense as we as viewers contribute just as much to the publication as its creators.

Katherine Fabian

Katherine Fabian is a recent graduate of Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center. She is a freelance writer and yoga teacher who hopes to one day practice fashion law and defend the intellectual property rights of designers. Contact Katherine at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post I Am Charlie, and So Are You: How Terrorism Affects Censorship appeared first on Law Street.

Since the top European court made a ruling in May requiring Google to field requests from members of the public to erase links associated with their names, the web search giant has removed about 230,000 URLs, according to its own data.

The European Union’s Court of Justice ruling said that Google would have to delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” links from its searches on its European domains, such as google.co.uk and google.fr. Removing such links doesn’t mean they’ll never appear in a Google search again; just that they’ll be omitted when they’re associated with the name of the person requesting the removal.

The rationale behind the so-called “right to be forgotten” decision is to allow members of the public to reclaim their online profiles if they’re damaged by negative content on the web. It’s up to Google whether the links should be removed. For example, Google cites an example of an Italian woman who asked that an article about her husband’s murder be dissociated with the search for her name. In another example, a German individual asked that an article about the person’s rape be removed. The links were removed in those cases, but an Italian man’s multiple requests to remove links to 20 articles about his arrest for financial crimes were denied.

This is an apparent win for private European citizens who want to be in control of their public profiles, but European Union officials last month began to push for Google to expand the program beyond just European domains. A statement from the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party said that “decisions must be implemented in such a way that they guarantee the effective and complete protection of data subjects’ rights and that EU law cannot be circumvented.” This means that Google would have to field requests for link removals on its .com domain for Europeans to be fully protected.

That has yet to happen, but if it does, it could also affect a lot of people outside Europe, based on how it is carried out. Americans could request that Google take down embarrassing, damaging, and irrelevant links. But establishing the right to be forgotten in the U.S. could be more difficult because some would argue it interferes with American freedom of speech. In a case unrelated to the European issue, a judge ruled last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco that Google is protected in terms of the order in which it presents its search results. The plaintiff, Louis Martin, was alleging that Google was biased in excluding his website, coastnews.com, from search results.

While the San Francisco story is in a way the backward version of the European story–a citizen is trying to get a link to be visible rather than be taken down–it could set the precedent that Google is free to present whatever results its algorithms decide are relevant, regardless of privacy.

Zaid Shoorbajee

Zaid Shoorbajee is a an undergraduate student at The George Washington University majoring in journalism and economics. He is from the Washington, D.C. area and likes reading and writing about international affairs, politics, business and technology (especially when they intersect). Contact Zaid at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Right to be Forgotten on Google: Will it Come to the U.S.? appeared first on Law Street.

Freedom of speech is one of our rights in the United States, and it is guaranteed by the First Amendment. So it is hard to believe that something like social media that a majority of us use every day, could be the exception to the rule that we can say what we want to say without fear of backlash. In general, there are exceptions that prevent hate speech, defamation, and threats. Some of these aren’t legal, just frowned upon by the society at large, while others can get someone in trouble. Social media sites allow for the spread of all types of speech, from spoken word pieces on sites like YouTube, to shorter phrases said in 140 characters on Twitter. The publication of negative speech has some positive and negative consequences. We’ve seen them play out in the last few years with events in Ferguson, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and every major election.

It is difficult, however, to choose which pieces of speech are worthy of protection from action and which can be used against someone in legal proceedings. Not everything said on social media can be taken at face value. What one person deems as offensive and disturbing may incite a different emotion in another person. Striking a balance between unfiltered free speech, political correctness, and censorship is difficult. Censoring what is allowed on social media may seem like it goes against our Constitutional Rights, but allowing a free-for-all on speech can lead to threats, bullying, and hate speech.

Social Media’s Impact

Speech is not, nor has it ever been, a completely good vs. evil situation. There is so much more behind a string of text than just the literal meaning of the words. This is what makes it so difficult to decide who and what has a right to be on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Some countries, like North Korea, Iran, China, Pakistan, and Turkey, have completely blocked their citizens’ access to social media sites as a way to ward off the problem. They operate under the theory that if you take away the cause, you won’t have to worry about it.

Many websites and apps do have “report” features so that a user can alert the webmasters that something has gone wrong. This begs the question, if someone says something terrible on social media, and it is reported but nothing happens, who is responsible for the fall out? It’s an increasingly important topic across the world; this isn’t just limited to the United States.

City of Ontario, California, et al v. Quon, et al

In 2009, the Supreme Court of California heard a case that discussed the rights to free speech in text messaging between employees. Employees of the City of Ontario, California filed a claim in district court against the police department, city, chief of police, and an internal affairs officer. They believed that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when their text messages on city-issued pagers were reviewed. The city did not have a text-messaging policy; however, it did have a general “Computer Usage, Internet, and E-mail” policy. Those employees felt as if that particular section did not cover their pagers. The court held that the city employees had a right to privacy in their text messages because there was no specific language about text messaging in the city’s policy.

This, along with several other cases about Cloud privacy has prompted many to ask the question: are Supreme Court justices too out of the loop to fully understand the severity of the problem? Most–though admittedly not all–Justices don’t interact with social media to a great extent. Perhaps one or two may have a Twitter account, but those are often controlled by members of their team. President Obama, who is largely considered more modern with technology, is the first sitting President to have a Twitter account, but there are questions about just who actually runs it.

 Anthony Elonis v. United States

This case concerns a Pennsylvania man, Anthony Elonis, and his post of violence-filled rap lyrics aimed toward his ex-wife. He didn’t use his own name, but rather the pseudonym Tone Dougie. His rap suggested that he should use his wife’s “head on a stick” in his Halloween costume. He used images that haunt the public mind, saying that he was going to terrorize a school as “Hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class.” Some of the other lyrics were extremely troubling:

There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts. Hurry up and die, bitch, so I can bust this nut all over your corpse from atop your shallow grave. I used to be a nice guy but then you became a slut.

He also rapped about killing federal agents. Tara Elonis, his ex-wife, felt threatened by the song. The court had to judge “whether the threatening speaker intended to harm anyone or whether the listener was genuinely afraid of being harmed.” Nancy Leong pointed out in the Huffington Post that, “because the Internet filters out voice and demeanor cues, online statements provide less information about the seriousness of the statement, and are thus more likely to be reasonably interpreted as threats.“

Elonis didn’t seem to be too upset at first, posting on Facebook: “Did you know that it’s illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife? It’s illegal. It’s indirect criminal contempt … I also found out it’s incredibly illegal, extremely illegal, to go on Facebook and say something like the best place to fire a mortar launcher at her house would be the cornfield behind it …”

The case is ongoing and it has incited intense emotions from both sides of the fence.

The Good

What are the benefits of having freedom of expression on social media? Surely, it is a way for some people to vent their anger without feeling self-conscious, nervous, or upset without resorting to violent actions. Everyone has a right to say what they think. We’ll never know, thankfully, if Elonis would have followed through on the threats in his rap.

Retweets, liking, or even posting your own status can be as effective as screaming at the top of your lungs at a protest. Lately, Facebook has been full of posts that educated everyone on topics relating to racism and the plight of African Americans in modern day America. There are always a few feminist pieces floating around. LGBTQ statuses, articles, and debate appear often, as well. Looking into the comments of these pieces, it is easy to see a cross section of what people believe about the topic. After all, the best way to argue for something is to know why people are arguing against it.

Social media has also become a home to those people who post positive things about topics from body-positive Instagram campaigns to equal media representation groups on Tumblr.

The Bad

To quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman: With great power, comes great responsibility. Unfortunately, many people do not understand their responsibility to fellow man. People who don’t believe in the status quo (or those who believe in the previous status quo that is now shifting to another) can stir up some pretty harsh feelings. People have the right to believe whatever they want, but these more extreme views on politics, racism, sexism, and homosexuality can start verbal sparring matches that help no one.

People have been using social media to post threats that haven’t been taken seriously for years. Stricter online controls would help alert the authorities in some cases, and even protect the innocent. Social media can be used for internet bullying, which in some cases is worse than the traditional verbal bullying. Online gossiping and social media platforms allow the bullying to continually exist–a problem for both the bully and the bullied.

Conclusion

Social media is one of the best inventions of the last century. It allows us to stay in contact with people we would have left behind, and it allows us to preserve our memories in a time capsule. However, it can also make or break a person depending on how someone reacts. Truthfully, the problem isn’t a freedom of speech issue, but rather one of morality. Can we take morals and apply them to the virtual world?

Resources

Primary

Supreme Court: City of Ontario, California, et al v. Quon et al

Constitution: First Amendment

Constitution: Fourth Amendment

Additional

Slate: Are Facebook Threats Real?

Huffington Post: Constitutional Rights in the Digital Age

The New York Times: Do Online Death Threats Count as Free Speech?

Salon: The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a problem

Business Insider: This Guy’s Facebook Rants Put Him In Prison, And The Supreme Court Will Hear His Case Today

Truth Out: This Time, “Free Speech” Cannot Prevail

ABA: United States v. Anthony Elonis – Third Circuit

Index on Censorship: 10 Countries that have Social Media Banned

The New York Times: Chief Justice Samples Eminem in Online Threats Case

First Amendment Center: Social Networking

Bloomberg: The 8 Most Important Cases in the New Supreme Court Term

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Freedom of Speech and Social Media appeared first on Law Street.

In January I published a break down of the top cases and judicial issues to watch in 2014. Now that the year is coming to an end, it seems appropriate to give you a progress report and see where those cases all ended up.

8. Lavabit and Ladar Levison

The case in January: After Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA spying, it was discovered that he was using an encrypted email service called Lavabit. The owner, Ladar Levison, was court-ordered to hand over access to the entire site to the government, because Lavabit’s programming made it impossible to hand over access to just Snowden’s account. In protest, Levison shut down the site, defied a gag order, and has now filed an appeal.

What happened in 2014: Ladar Levison lost his appeal in April when he was hit with contempt of court charges. However, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case was held, didn’t rule against Levison because of the merits of the case, but rather because it believed he had made a procedural misstep from the beginning and its hands were tied.

7. Jodi Arias

The case in January: In 2013, we saw the extremely weird case involving Jodi Arias in Arizona. She was eventually convicted of murdering her boyfriend, Travis Alexander. It was a gruesome and disturbing case in which the jury found her guilty; however, they could not agree on whether to sentence her to life in prison, or to death. A mistrial was declared on the sentencing portion of her trial and the new sentencing trial will also have new jurors.

What happened in 2014: The sentencing phase of Arias’ case is still underway. There’s controversy over some “mystery witness” and Arias demanding that the proceedings be made secret. What Arias’ sentence will be remains just as big of a mystery.

6. McCullen v. Coakley 

The case in January: McCullen v. Coakley has been waiting for its day in court since 2001. There was appeal after appeal before the Justices agreed to hear it. It involves a law that Massachusetts instituted to create a 35-foot buffer zone around reproductive health facilities.

What happened in 2014: SCOTUS ruled the Massachusetts buffer zones unconstitutional in the sense that they impeded protesters’ Freedom of Speech. If you’d like more information on the case, check out fellow Law Streeter Erika Bethmann’s excellent takedown of the decision: Sorry SCOTUS, Harassment isn’t Free Speech.

5. Silkroad Case

The case in January: The infamous illegal-good site Silk Road was removed from the web last Fall, and its alleged creator, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested. The site sold drugs and fraudulent IDs, among other things. In addition to being indicted for his work on the site, he has was accused of hiring assassins. The $80 million he allegedly made through the site is now in government custody.

What happened in 2014: The case against Ross Ulbrecht has been delayed until January 2015. He pleaded not guilty to various drug trafficking, money laundering, hacking, and criminal enterprise charges. According to his defense counsel, the case has been delayed because:

The court did not provide its reasons for the adjournment, but we asked for it earlier this week based on a couple of factors: the danger that the trial would run into the Christmas holidays, which would affect juror availability and the continuity of the trial; some technical and logistical delays (owing to the limitations inherent in Mr. Ulbricht’s pretrial confinement) in getting Mr Ulbricht access to some discovery; some other scheduling issues.

4. Marriage rights

The case(s) in January: The Supreme Court already put a stop to Utah’s same-sex marriage licenses in 2014. The case will now go to the nearest appeals court. This is just one example; there are other cases regarding the rights of homosexuals to marry all over the United States.

What happened in 2014: The victories just keep coming for gay marriage advocates. One of the biggest was on October 6 when the Supreme Court chose not to hear a whole collection of cases challenging same-sex marriage bans in a bunch of different states. Because it declined to weigh in on the appeals court decisions that had ruled the marriage bans unconstitutional, SCOTUS effectively increased the number of states with gay marriage to 30.

3. Voting Rights Cases

The case(s) in January: There have been a variety of efforts at the state level to change voting rights laws, and the DOJ and various special interest groups have stood up to these changes when needed. But in 2013, part of the Voting Rights Act was struck down by the Supreme Court. So, each challenge to voting rights has to be filed against separately. As a result, many suits will be heard in 2014 to states’ attempted voting rights changes.

What happened in 2014: As with gay marriage, there are a lot of cases still running through the system. Unlike gay marriage, there hasn’t been quite as much progress. There have been some cases argued in front of appeals courts, and some voter ID laws struck down, such as in Wisconsin and Texas. It seems like voter ID laws, as well as other restrictive voting laws will end up being decided on a state-by-state basis for a while.

2. Contraception 

The case(s) in January: There were contraception cases regarding coverage through the Affordable Care Act that made it to the court in 2013, but many more will be on deck in 2014. One involves a nonprofit called Little Sisters of the Poor, and others involve for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby.

What happened in 2014: The Hobby Lobby case was one of the biggest decisions to come out of SCOTUS this year. The Hobby Lobby decision made it so that private employers could refuse to provide certain contraception coverage in their insurance plans. While the justices attempted to make the case very narrow and make sure that they just ruled on the specifics of that case so that the “floodgates” wouldn’t be opened, what ramifications it may have down the road will be interesting to see.

1. NSA Cases

The case(s) in January: A lot of cases have been filed regarding the NSA’s monitoring of US citizens. A few may make it to the high court. US District Court Judge Richard Leon in Washington recently ruled that the NSA monitoring was unconstitutional. Meanwhile, District Court Judge William Pauley in New York dismissed a similar case. That kind of contradiction could lead to a big legal showdown in 2014.

What happened in 2014: This is another issue that has in many ways not come to its full judicial potential. Some cases are moving forward though — a federal appeals court in DC just started to hear a case that questioned the constitutionality of the NSA collecting so much data after the passage of the Patriot Act. This will be an issue to keep our eyes on moving into 2015.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Cases to Watch in 2014: Where are They Now appeared first on Law Street.

Social Media has exploded in recent years as the most popular way for young people to communicate. At the time of a Pew study created in 2012, 95 percent of teens aged 12-17 had access to the Internet. Thirty-seven percent owned some sort of smart phone, and 80 percent had a computer. Eighty-one percent reported regularly using some sort of social media platform. While the specific social media platforms that teens actually use has evolved over the years, it’s clear that using these types of sites to communicate isn’t going away any time soon. Given that students are moving away from the kind of social media that their parents are attracted to, the question is clear: is anyone monitoring what happens on social media sites between teenagers? Read on to learn about the debate, the perspective of schools, and where we currently stand.

Why might schools get involved with student social media use?

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Teens and Social Media: How do Schools Fit In? appeared first on Law Street.

Childhood and adult obesity is highly reported as a growing epidemic in the United States, yet less often do we hear of the negative psychological and physical ramifications of eating disorders. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anorexia nervosa is the most fatal mental disorder, “[with] an estimated mortality rate of around 10 percent.” According to the National Eating Disorder Association, “20 million women and 10 million men [in the United States] suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life.” Although these types of disorders may not always be obvious, they are taking a toll on many young Americans who suffer in silence until it is too late.

What is an eating disorder?

An eating disorder is a life consuming mental illness that forces an individual to consciously diet or consume to an extreme, detrimental point. People who are affected by an eating disorder constantly obsess over calories, food, and their body weight. In the case of anorexia, the person limits his or her calorie intake to an extremely low and unhealthy number and adheres to a strict diet only consisting of “safe” foods. An individual with bulimia binges until he or she is uncomfortably full, then purges by vomiting. These disorders cause serious physical and psychological damage and can ultimately result in death. They are fueled by personal angst, trauma, and are essentially a way to cope with negative feelings, including personality disorders such as Obsessive Compulsive and extreme perfectionist tendencies. Eating disorders go beyond the surface desire of wanting to be thin. If left untreated through cognitive therapy and support, eating disorders will progressively consume the victim, until his or her entire life revolves around appeasing this internally violent illness.

What is a Pro-Ana/Mia website?

A Pro-Ana/Mia website is a public forum on which people, the majority of whom are women, with eating disorders share tips for maintaining an anorexic or bulimic lifestyle. Members share diet, beauty, and fitness tips that revolve around the theme of being thin. Discussions are not all illogical, yet the majority of them are fueled by the intense desire to remain in control, with the ultimate goal of reaching the most emaciated state possible. The sites often feature photographs of extremely thin people whose bones protrude and bodies that appear sick and gaunt. According to Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics, “there are now over 400 pro-ana/mia websites.” These sites encourage people to embrace their disorders as a lifestyle and assure victims that they are not abnormal or alone in their choice to live with an eating disorder. They promote and enhance the typically negative image that eating disorders support. Woman offer each other support to fuel the disorder, continuously telling it that the body is not (and never will) be thin enough. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders characteristics of a pro-ana site include:

• The glamorization/idolization of images of emaciated or very thin individuals

• The implication that food and weight are the enemy

• Encouragement and teaching of dangerous eating disorder behaviors

• Promotion of thinness at any cost, denial of the seriousness of the illness

• Insistence that eating disorders are choices rather than illnesses

• Attempts to mask toxicity by being exclusive and elite

What the investigative report below on the dangers of pro-anorexic (pro-ana) and pro-bulimia (pro-mia) websites.

Do Pro-Ana/Mia Websites constitute free speech?

Eating disorders continue to carry a negative connotation despite their increasing popularity among teens and young women. This doesn’t stop women from openly spilling their diet and exercise secrets, no matter how extreme and unhealthy. The pro-ana maxim is “thinspiration.” Girls motivate one another to maintain their eating disorders and are virtually assisting each other in a prolonged suicide.

This information is accessible to children. Girls mature faster than boys and are susceptible to the influence of their peers as early as the age of eight. If curiosity about weight loss becomes appealing, the individual has this controversial information right at her fingertips. Proponents of the movement feel that if these websites are not censored they will continue to corrupt youth and increase eating disorders among younger generations.

Watch the video below of four recovered women sharing the harm Pro-ana/mia websites can inflict on someone struggling with an eating disorder.

According to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right, “[The right of freedom of expression may] be subject to certain restrictions…For the protection…of public order or of public health or morals.”  Pro-Ana/Mia websites portray anorexia and bulimia in a positive light and increase the likelihood of individuals who view them developing an eating disorder. This could be considered a danger to the overall public health, and gives government the incentive to block or censor them.

Pro-Ana supporters argue that the “thinspiration” movement gives individuals the opportunity to gain support and share tips with others who are experiencing the same thing, yet all of the exchanges on these sites seem to be negative. People motivate one another by saying things like they need lose more weight, and giving them tips on how to achieve that dream state of being virtually weightless and emaciated. The sites lack any positive effect on the community or individuals suffering with an illness. Therefore, they have little to argue regarding their need to stay accessible to the general public or their effect on the community.

Case Study: Valerie Boyer’s Bill (Ban on Pro-Ana)

A short clip from the documentary about the pro-anorexia movement in France, and the legislation to make it illegal:

France passed legislation in 2008 outlawing the portrayal of extreme thinness in the media as a desirable or positive trait. Additionally, Valerie Boyer, a  right-wing member of the lower house of Parliament, created a bill to enforce the elimination of Pro-Ana websites. The bill called for media outlets to face potential fines and possible jail time if they embraced the message that emaciation and eating disorders are attractive. The bill did not pass, yet it helped to draw more attention to the issue and awareness in both France and the United States has been increasing since the proposal. In the United States, servers such as Yahoo have worked to ban several pro-anorexia websites from their server.

Case Study: Social Media Bans Pro-Ana

In an effort to stop the glamorization of eating disorders throughout social media, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr all updated their policies in 2012 to ban some of the attention that pro-ana websites receive online. Tumblr issued a statement outlining its plan to eliminate blogs that actively promote self-harm. If a user types in a trigger word such as “anorexia” on Tumblr, instead of receiving diet tips or images of emaciated models, a message urging you to seek assistance will appear. On Pinterest, although pro-anorexia images still exist  upon searching “anorexia”, results are displayed below the following message:

“Eating disorders are not lifestyle choices, they are mental disorders that if left untreated can cause serious health problems or could even be life-threatening. For treatment referrals, information, and support, you can always contact the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 1-800-931-2237 or www.nationaleatingdisorders.org”

Although more passive in nature, this message is meant to urge the user to recognize the dangers of the disorder, and to seek professional support as oppose to the negative motivation from others who suffer from a similar illness.

Instagram issued a new policy, to eliminate the promotion of self-harm on Instagram. The policy reads:

“Don’t promote or glorify self-harm:

1. “While Instagram is a place where people can share their lives with others through photographs and videos, any account found encouraging or urging users to embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or to cut, harm themselves, or commit suicide will result in a disabled account without warning. We believe that communication regarding these behaviors in order to create awareness, come together for support and to facilitate recovery is important, but that Instagram is not the place for active promotion or glorification of self-harm.”

Instagram does not follow through with its former ban. When searching “anorexia” on Instagram, results display a long list of users who share photos of their gaunt collarbones, protruding hips, and non-existent  thighs. One photo, under the user “anorexianervosa_depression,” reads:

“Call it a sickness, call it an obsession, I don’t care, I call it perfection.”

There have been petitions to eliminate “thinspiration” tags on Twitter, yet when searched several photographs of overtly thin thighs and tiny waists appear. On Facebook, pages such as “Anorexia Tips” are easily accessible to anyone with an account. To see how websites measured up to their policy proposals, Buzzfeed compiled a list of all of social media sites efforts to ban pro-ana, and graded them based on how effectively they have eliminated the “thinspiration” movement across the web. Most of the sites received a low grade, in that most of them still permit much of the pro-anorexia community’s antics and do little to stop the community from continuing to infiltrate the social media stream.

Users have discovered loopholes. The bans do not necessarily stop users from continuing to post pro-ana material; in order to remain accessible, users can simply use different taglines in order for the material to appear when searched.The only way to truly minimize the value of the “thinspiration” movement is for people to stop liking the material, then it will eventually fade away.

Social media platforms run into some problems when they ban one type of body fad and not others, such as body building. Any extreme body manipulation could be considered a dangerous mental illness, therefore singling out a specific movement could cause the networks freedom of speech problems. To consider one group more dangerous than another becomes constitutionally complicated in that one group should not be favored over the other if they all do pose a potential threat to society. Eating disorders can be a very subjective experience and the line between the sharing of a personal experience and advocating for a disease is very thin. If pro-ana sites were to be censored or banned, would people who are simply telling their story be penalized?

The battle to remove these sites rages on between concerned medical experts and parents; yet pro-ana reigns on as a form of freedom of speech, and will continue to taint the minds of eating-disordered individuals until they are stopped.

Resources

Primary

DHS of Iowa: Pro-Anorexia/Pro-Bulimia Websites: A Dangerous Influence

Additional

ANAD: Eating Disorders and the Internet

Sociology of Health and Illness: Pro-anorexia, weight-loss drugs and the internet: an ‘anti-recovery’ explanatory model of anorexia

The New York Times: French legislators approve law against Web sites encouraging anorexia and bulimia

About Kids Health: Starved for attention: pro-anorexia websites glorify eating disorders

Body Space Society: Banning Pro-ANA Websites? NOt a Good Idea, As Web Censorship Might Have a ‘Toothpaste Tube Effect’

CBS: Despite social media bans of “pro-ana” websites, pages persist

Huffington Post: Why Blocking ‘Pro-Ana’ Sites Is a Bad Idea

Johns Hopkins University: Study Examines Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Bulimia Websites

Eating Disorders Recovery Today: Call to Ban Pro-Ana Websites

The New York Times: Point, Shoot, Retouch and Label?

PBS: Fighting social media ‘thinspiration’ with messages of self-acceptance

ABC: Pro-Anorexia ‘Thinspiration’ Photos Shouldn’t Be Banned from Social Media

Huffington Post: Can Thinspiration Really Be #Banned From Instagram?

 Debate: Should pro-anorexia websites be censored?

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Madeleine Stern (@M3estern) is a student at George Mason University majoring in Journalism and minoring in Theater. Her writing on solitary confinement inspired her to pursue a graduate degree in clinical counseling after graduation. Madeleine is an avid runner, dedicated animal lover, and a children’s ballet instructor. Contact Madeleine at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Evelina Zachariou via Flickr]

Madeleine Stern

Madeleine Stern attended George Mason University majoring in Journalism and minoring in Theater. Her writing on solitary confinement inspired her to pursue a graduate degree in clinical counseling after graduation. Madeleine is an avid runner, dedicated animal lover, and a children’s ballet instructor. Contact Madeleine at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Bones Are (Not) Better: The Battle to Ban Pro-Ana Websites appeared first on Law Street.

How many times do we check online reviews of a product before choosing to buy it? Reviews are important for many consumers to make sure they are spending their money on something that is of good quality. But can companies really sue customers for posting a negative review of a product on an online forum?

After posting a negative Amazon review of a Mediabridge brand router, a Florida man recently received a letter from Mediabridge’s lawyers threatening a lawsuit. The company claimed that the review contained false information intended to hurt its reputation and that the man’s statements could be considered slanderous. The company went on to warn that it would sue the man unless he removed his review, stopped purchasing Mediabridge products, and ceased future discussion of the company on the internet.

Can companies really sue individuals over their negative reviews on the internet?

Legal precedent works in favor of the companies. For example, Virginia courts heard a case in 2012 of a similar issue on Yelp and Angie’s List. A retired military captain living in Fairfax County posted a negative review of a contracting service on Yelp and Angie’s List claiming that not only was the service poor, but also that she was billed for services that weren’t performed, and the contractor may have also stolen jewelry. The contractor, Christopher Dietz, sued her for $750,000 for defamatory remarks on an internet review site. Dietz argued that the reviewer’s statements were false and that her negative review impacted his business and reputation. The court held for the contractor. The case was later overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court.

How could this affect consumers?

Providing real insight into the quality of goods and services is the purpose of consumer reviews. It is helpful to read positive reviews in order to make a wise purchase, but negative reviews are also important to warn others of faulty products and poor service. If consumers realize that they can be sued over their critical comments about products, however, many may not be truthful or even write reviews at all anymore. Consumers have a right to know information about the quality of a good o service before they spend their money, but if people are deterred from sharing this information for fear they may create legal trouble for themselves it will become much harder for consumers to make informed decisions.

Can consumer reviews be protected?

Companies like Amazon need to step up to protect their customers. According to Amazon’s terms of use, product sellers are not allowed to demand consumers remove their reviews. These terms are there for a reason: Amazon wants customers to freely critique the items they have purchased through the site. If companies threaten customers with lawsuits over negative reviews, then Amazon needs to step in.

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Sarah Helden (@SHelden430)

[National Journal] [TIME] [Amazon]

Featured image courtesy of [Wikipedia]

Sarah Helden

Sarah Helden is a graduate of The George Washington University and a student at the London School of Economics. She was formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Sarah at staff@LawStreetmedia.com.

The post Reviewers Beware: Negative Product Reviews Might Cost You appeared first on Law Street.

Attention public workers: Due to legal precedent, the Supreme Court may not be willing to protect your job if you’re forced to testify against your employer.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments April 28 in Lane v. Franks, in which Edward Lane, an Alabama state employee, is suing his employer, who he says fired him after he testified against the agency several years ago. The case poses a serious question: does freedom of speech protect public employees from being fired after exposing harmful practices by their employer?

In 2008 and 2009, Lane was subpoenaed to testify in a public corruption case in which his testimony was key in exposing corrupt practices and spurred a major overhaul of the state’s ethics codes. Despite all of that, Lane ultimately harmed himself with his testimony: he was fired from his position as an employee at Central Alabama Community College.

Precedent set in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) likely won’t help Lane’s case. In Garcetti, the Supreme Court ruled that there is a difference between speaking as a public employee and as a citizen, and that when people issue statements about their duties and roles in a public position they are not speaking as an average citizen and therefore they are not protected by freedom of speech. Because of that distinction, public employees cannot be guarded from the disciplinary procedures of their employers.

The Supreme Court should overturn Garcetti v. Ceballos and protect public workers’ free speech — here are three reasons why:

1. Public institutions must be held accountable for their actions.

During oral arguments in Lane v. Franks, Justice Sotomayor asked, “What are you doing about the truth­ finding functions [in a trial] setting when you’re saying or telling people, employees, don’t go and tell the truth because if the truth hurts your employer, you’re going to be fired?” As the justice points out, ruling that employees are not protected by the first amendment when exposing truthful problems about their employer can lessen the degree to which public institutions can be held accountable for improper actions. If the court rules against Lane, public employees, who have the most knowledge of the inner workings of their organizations will be silenced and will not continue to expose the wrongdoings of public institutions. If public employees cannot speak up and tell the truth about these problems, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to fix the faults in our public institutions.

2. Public and private employees will be treated differently.

If the Supreme Court’s differentiation between rights of free speech between citizens and public employees is upheld, the U.S. will effectively treat public and private employees differently. Private employees will be treated as ‘citizens’ and will be guaranteed freedom of speech in exposing their employer’s unlawful practices, while public employees will not be given this right. The fact that some, but not all, employees will have freedom of speech is discriminatory and unjust. All American citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech no matter their race, religion, or gender — and this should include type of employment.

3. Subpoenaed public employees have no choice but to testify.

If the court rules against Lane, public employees may have to choose between their jobs and a legal battle. Lane was subpoenaed to testify against Central Alabama Community College. This means it was mandated that he appear before the court to give his testimony, and failing to do so would have put him in serious legal trouble. Additionally, it is against the law to lie under oath, and if Lane had been subpoenaed to testify but issued false statements to protect his employment, he would also face legal charges. This presents a lose-lose situation for public employees. If subpoenas require a citizen’s testimony in court, public employees should not be faulted for following the law. Being forced to testify should not enable one to be fired.

When such important cases can affect the lives of so many Americans, the justices have a duty to make a sound and reasoned decision. But will they be able to do so if some of them can’t recall their own previous decisions? Justice Kennedy, who wrote the Garcetti opinion, couldn’t believe why a subpoenaed testimony wouldn’t be protected by the First Amendment. In order to give justice to Lane and other public employees, the court needs to pay attention to how their earlier decisions can affect later outcomes.

[Washington Post] [ABA Journal] [NPR]

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Sarah Helden (@shelden430)

Featured image courtesy of [Daderot via Wikimedia Commons]

Sarah Helden

Sarah Helden is a graduate of The George Washington University and a student at the London School of Economics. She was formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Sarah at staff@LawStreetmedia.com.

The post 3 Reasons Why the Supreme Court Must Protect Public Workers appeared first on Law Street.

Revenge porn is now legal in New York. The issue occurs when a person posts nude photographs of an ex-lover on the internet as a way to embarrass and degrade the ex. The photographs are often exchanged willingly while love blossoms, but when that same love wilts, the images change from intimate gifts to dangerous weapons that can seriously damage a person’s reputation.

For example, in the New York case People v. Barber, the defendant tweeted a nude photograph of his ex-girlfriend and shared it with her sister and employer. While the court acknowledged the “reprehensible” nature of the defendant’s conduct, it nonetheless found him innocent of any crime.

The problem concerns the specific language of New York’s law. In most states, you cannot take a nude photograph of a person without that person’s knowledge or consent. This rule does not apply, however, to situations where a person willingly gives a naked photograph to another. The New York court latched onto this distinction and dismissed the case.

While this particular dismissal was based on the language of the statute, some critics wonder if legislation specifically targeting revenge porn might violate freedom of speech rights. The American Civil Liberties Union opposed a draft to California’s revenge porn bill on the grounds that “the posting of otherwise lawful speech or images even if offensive or emotionally distressing is constitutionally protected. The speech must constitute a true threat or violate another otherwise lawful criminal law, such as stalking or harassment statute, in order to be made illegal.” Those who oppose a statute criminalizing revenge porn highlight the fact that the photographs were freely given and are, in essence, the property of the receiver to do as he wishes.

In contrast, another angle to the problem concerns the ubiquity and permanence of the internet and anything posted to it. Search engines allow anyone to instantly access everything ever posted about a person. Employers, colleagues, and friends all have the ability to discover information about you posted online. This makes a naked photograph in the hands of a scornful ex-flame particularly dangerous and powerful. Put simply: there is no real way to remove something from the internet, and search engines organize what is on the internet with terrifying accurateness and efficiency. An individual risks permanent reputational damage from revenge porn.

While anyone can suffer from revenge porn, the pernicious practice more often negatively affects women. Drafters of revenge porn statutes must also analyze this issue focusing on how it relates to sexual harassment and the discrimination of women. The issue does not affect men in the same way, and drafters need to scrutinize whether or not their stance on revenge porn has any latent sexist, misogynistic, or patriarchal impulses.

Revenge porn constitutes a particularly modern problem. Numerous themes percolate, including changing mores, technological advancement, sexual harassment and discrimination, freedom of speech, and the chaos of unreciprocated love. In New York, the court has signaled to the legislature to fix the problem. Whether and how the state chooses to draft a statute speaks to which themes the state decides to value.

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Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York City whose blog explores the legal implications of social media and the internet. Contact him via email here.

Imran Ahmed

Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York. Contact Imran at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post New York Court OKs Revenge Porn; Will the Legislature Act? appeared first on Law Street.

The fact that James Dean died in 1955 hasn’t prevented his fans from following his active Twitter account. A passionate fan of the actor created the handle @JamesDean and maintains a sustained presence as his Twitter voice. Dean’s estate, however, took issue with this renegade appropriation and has sued Twitter for not shutting down the account, claiming it has to control how James Dean’s name and image are used. They argue that they are the rightful owners to the handle @JamesDean and should control its activity.

Interestingly, the operator of @JamesDean claims that this lawsuit represents an about-face from the estate’s previous policy. On June 16, 2010, @JamesDean sent the following tweet:

Twitter believes that the use of @JamesDean falls within their trademark policy, which permits users to create fan pages of a celebrity as long as the page is not misleading followers into thinking the account represents the official voice of that person. Ultimately, this case features parties with conflicting rights. The Twitter user can argue that he has a freedom of speech right to create a fan account for his or her favorite actor. James Dean’s estate can point to its intellectual property right to control how James Dean’s name is used.

If this case goes well for James Dean’s estate, it could unleash a cascade of litigation against Twitter by celebrities, dead and alive. Additionally, if Twitter caves to the pressure applied by James Dean’s estate and dethrones the user who controls @JamesDean, that could also set a precedent that encourages other celebrity estates to sue the company. Twitter will have a lot to lose if they unsuccessfully handle this lawsuit.

To its advantage, Twitter can demonstrate that they have policies in place to signal that an account is operated by the real celebrity or his or her estate. For example, Michael Jackson’s Twitter page has a check mark by his name indicating that the account is verified.

Twitter can argue that James Dean’s estate can create their own Twitter account with the verified check mark to proclaim that the account represents the actual voice of James Dean. The estate will appear petulant by maintaining that only the handle @JamesDean will suffice to protect their rights as owners of James Dean’s estate. James and Dean are both popular names – the argument would also mean that the estate can repossess the account of some unfortunate teen who shares the name of the famous star if the teen had @JamesDean as his handle. While it is unlucky that an avid fan created @JamesDean before the estate, their logic appears shaky when they can just create another handle as a verified Twitter account.

There is something unsurprising with James Dean being exiled from his own Twitter handle. It fits his renegade image – but his estate believes only he has the right to determine that.

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Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York City whose blog explores the legal implications of social media and the internet. Contact him via email here.

Featured imaged courtesy of [Stephanie via Flickr]

Imran Ahmed

Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York. Contact Imran at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post James Dean Sues Twitter From the Grave appeared first on Law Street.

Yelp suffered a crucial loss in a recent Virginia Court decision.

Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, a small business in Virginia, noticed a few negative Yelp reviews and did some investigation. The business claims that after studying their records, the Yelp complaints did not match any actual customer experiences in their books. Hadeed Carpet sent a subpoena to Yelp requesting the identities of the Yelp users who wrote the allegedly unfounded posts, but Yelp refused to comply with the subpoena and the case went to trial.

The Virginia Court of Appeals has sided with the small business and ordered Yelp to reveal the identities of the users. The court reasons that if the users who wrote the unfavorable comments were never actually customers of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, then those negative reviews amount to defamation not worthy of any First Amendment protection.

Most commentators deride the decision for curtailing freedom of speech; yet, a longer look at Yelp’s litigation history illuminates why this ruling may help those harmed by Yelp.

Yelp has long heard the complaints of small-business owners who claim the company effectively extorts them for money. The common story often begins with a small business noticing a particularly negative comment on their Yelp page. Then the business discovers Yelp’s algorithm filtering out positive comments and thus making negative comments more prominent. Finally comes a sales pitch from a Yelp employee suggesting that the small business advertise on Yelp. Often, the sales pitch includes statements that advertising with Yelp will result in a better filtration process and the removal of negative reviews. Since an alluring Yelp page has a weighty impact on a business’ bottom, many business owners feel threatened by these solicitations.

Yelp has had to squash legal attempts to expose this allegedly coercive practice. In 2011, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of all businesses who declined to advertise with Yelp or who advertised with Yelp in the last four years. The lawsuit claimed that Yelp “unlawfully manipulated the content” of a business’ Yelp page in order to push the business to pay for advertising. In that case, the Plaintiff, Levitt, alleges this story in their Brief:

Two days after Levitt’s conversation with Yelp’s employees – during which he declined to purchase advertising — six out of the seven 5-star reviews were removed from his business page leaving Levitt with an overall star rating of 3.5 stars. As a result, during the month of August, Levitt’s business Yelp page received only 158 page views as opposed to the 261 page views Levitt’s business experienced in July of 2009. Since then, Levitt’s business revenues experienced a decline that corresponded almost directly to the decline in page views.

The Brief outlines other stories with other businesses voicing a narrative that echoed Levitt’s tale about Yelp’s knavish advertising schemes. While Yelp managed to dismiss the lawsuit, that cessation did not help distance Yelp from their alleged aggressive sales practices. Their victory was more technical than substantive. In the lawsuit, the Plaintiffs recounted two exploitative tactics they claim Yelp engaged in: 1.) fabricating negative reviews; and 2.) manipulating a business’ Yelp page to highlight negative reviews and filter positive reviews.

On the first practice, the court dismissed the charge due to lack of proof, not lack of guilt. The court reasoned that businesses could not prove beyond speculation that Yelp actually authored any of the negative reviews that businesses claimed Yelp fabricated. This conclusion had undoubted truth because, up until recently, courts had not allowed businesses to subpoena Yelp about the actual sources behind reviews. Yelp had successfully been able to argue that anonymous users had privacy and freedom of speech rights that prevented access to their identity. If the allegations alleged against Yelp had any merit, Yelp crookedly used freedom of speech and privacy rights as a shield preventing any discovery about their practice of self-composing negative reviews.

The recent ruling in favor of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning has special importance for marking a change in this tolerance. Instead of bending to freedom of speech concerns, the court focused more on the right to protect one’s reputation. Thus, this ruling in Hadeed Carpet might facilitate a proper exploration of the complaints of small-business owners since the court has finally allowed a Plaintiff to learn the identity of dubious anonymous users – and, perhaps, that these users were Yelp employees. While businesses previously had no method to prove their allegations that Yelp penned negative reviews, the court’s ruling in Hadeed Carpet might finally give businesses some recourse.

This seems all the more important, since the second complaint against Yelp – that they filter their messages in a duplicitous manner – has little prospect of victory. In the 2011 class action lawsuit, this claim failed due to the Communications Decency Act (CDA), a Congressional statute that lets “interactive computer services” – like Yelp – edit and manipulate content posted on their website without any risk of liability.

The CDA emerged out of a desire to promote internet freedom and growth. Congress wanted to facilitate the success of websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp by immunizing these sites from lawsuits brought because of the actions of a user on the website. Basically, if a Twitter user says something defamatory on Twitter – like when Courtney Love tweeted that her fashion designer was a former prostitute — the CDA posits that the defamed party can sue the Twitter user, but not Twitter. This allows websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp to function without having the legal burden of monitoring everything that’s said.

Even if these websites have no legal burden to monitor, the CDA still wants to encourage some sort of filtration process to monitor and remove hate speech. Courts have interpreted the CDA to let websites like Yelp filter messages without any risk of liability if they fail to succeed in catching and removing any invective prose. Websites like Facebook have an incredible volume of information, and the CDA hopes to encourage some editing and filtering process even if it sometimes inevitably fails. Consequently, a website faces no liability for their choices to edit or filter content. If the allegations against Yelp have any merit, Yelp again contorts the intention of this policy for its own economic self-interest. Instead of merely filtering hate speech, the allegations contend that Yelp filters innocent, positive messages to induce companies to buy Yelp advertisements.

Importantly, the CDA immunizes Yelp from this practice and courts have said as much. For example, in the Dismissal of the 2011 Class Action, the Judge wrote: “Yelp’s alleged manipulation of their review pages – by removing certain reviews and publishing others or changing their order of appearance – falls within the conduct immunized by § 230(c)(1)” of the CDA. The court even says that the statute currently allows filtering and deleting of comments done with a “wrongful motive.” Even if businesses can prove Yelp filters comments with a wrongful motive, courts have held that the CDA allows websites like Yelp that privilege.

Thus, the ruling in Hadeed Carpet Cleaning has importance to businesses hoping to prove their allegations against Yelp. The CDA literally allows Yelp to manipulate a business’ Yelp page without any risk of liability. The only recourse available to businesses hoping to expose that Yelp extorted them is to prove that Yelp fabricates negative reviews. Such a practice would be a crime, and the best – and perhaps only — way to prove that is through learning the identities of users who post dubious negative reviews.

Importantly, Yelp has officially and repeatedly denied that they engage in this practice. It could just be that these businesses had the misfortune of encountering rogue Yelp sales associates who employ overzealous tactics to earn their commissions. Or, the story could have no truth at all. For now, the CDA and freedom of speech rights have prevented us from knowing.

The main takeaway, however, focuses on how we balance rights. In Hadeed Carpet the court determined that Hadeed’s right to protect its reputation trumped a Yelp user’s right to remain anonymous. These allegations against Yelp highlight how rights always have tradeoffs: if you allow absolute freedom of speech and privacy rights, you disallow any discovery about whether Yelp effectively blackmails businesses. Additionally, sometimes rights tradeoffs occur due to external factors. Might the court in Hadeed have known about the intractable immunity granted to Yelp by the CDA and consequently softened the freedom of speech and privacy rights its users enjoy?

No one actually knows if Yelp engaged in the practice of extorting businesses into buying advertisements. We do know, however, that the law would have allowed them to legally do it…at least before the recent ruling in Hadeed Carpet Cleaners.

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Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York City whose blog explores the legal implications of social media and the internet. Contact him via email here.

Featured image courtesy of [Steven & Courtney Johnson & Horowitz via Flickr]

Imran Ahmed

Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York. Contact Imran at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Feeling Extorted by Yelp’s Business Practices? Help May be on the Way appeared first on Law Street.