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The internet is a public place. The principles of civil discourse apply (if you can afford the lawyer).
While the case didn’t go to a jury, First Amendment experts say it highlights the need for celebrities and average people to watch what they say online.
(snip)
“The laws controlling what is and isn’t libelous are the same regardless of the medium in which the statements appear,” (First Amendment Attorney Doug Mirell) said.
In a parallel vein, the local rag has banned anonymous comments on opinion pieces (not on news stories) and considers the experiment a success. From the editor of the editorial page:
The content of the comments on letters, editorials and columns has been so uniformly better, in fact, that we’ve been running them regularly in our letters column.
There is a difference between being intense and being insulting.
