John Dean has this analysis of the Jones V. Dirty World Entertainment case heading to the Sixth Circuit, a case which could change the parameters of the law on the safe harbors provided in the Communications Decency Act to Internet Service Providers from defamatory on-line material.
CDA Section 230 protects Internet intermediaries fr0m liability for information provided by other information content providers. According to the trial court opinion, a Cincinatti Bengals cheerleader complained about sexual postings about her, includiing that she had slept with multiple team members and that she had a sexually transmitted disease, on thedirty.com. But the site refused to take them down. Web site editor Hooman Karamian, also known as Nik Richie, not only selected what postings to put up but also commented on the postings. The trial judge, according to the opinion concluded, thedirty.com and its editor were not entitled to the CDA safe harbor because the editor '“specifically encourage development of what is offensive about the content”' of the web site.
You can read the opinion on appeal here: http://www.dmlp.org/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/2012-01-10-SummaryJudgme...
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