Two versions of this theory were bandied about nearly 10 years ago. One version involved some brief speculation as to whether defamation via CMC is more like slander (spoken defamation) than like libel (written defamation). The rules for slander differ slightly, as spoken defamation is less permanent. A second variation suggested that the U.S. NYT v. Sullivan "public figure" standard applies to everyone on-line; i.e., that cheap access to CMC gives everyone access to mass media, making everyone a public figure. In that case, counter-speech would be the preferred remedy. Some of the proprietary ISPs (AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy) adopted this as their internal policy for a time: if you felt you had been defamed on their systems, you got free access to rebut the defamation. Neither of these ideas went anywhere, and CMC defamation nowadays gets (mostly) treated like print defamation. DLB On 5 Dec 2005, Judd Antin wrote:

An interesting side note: the distinction between 'transient' and 'fixed' communication or media appears to underlay the legal notion of defamation. Wikipedia doesn't fit cleanly into either of those categories. Should a work that is universally and indefinitely editable be subject to the same requirements as traditional slander and libel? It could certainly have an effect on an individual's reputation, but at the same time that individual (or any other) is empowered to immediately remove the offending passage.

--Judd

--Judd Antin School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS) University of California Berkeley jantin@sims.berkeley.edu http://technotaste.com blog: http://technotaste.com/blog

Dan L. Burk Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor University of Minnesota Law School 229 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA *************************************** Voice: 612-626-8726 Fax: 612-625-2011 bits: burkx006@umn.edu