Weblogging Liability Question Of

Juan Cole 08/31/2005

Weblogging Liability

The question of whether Weblog owners are legally liable for comments made by readers could be settled by a current lawsuit.

A lot of forces in US society are very upset about the emergence of an Information Democracy on the Web, and I think the courts will increasingly be invoked to close down free discourse. As regular readers know, rightwing Zionists have tried this tactic with me. The case discussed by the WSJ is complicated by a charge of revealing trade secrets, but that charge may be easy to trump up.

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan and an adjunct professor, Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University. He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page