The free-wheeling razor-tounged days of the blogger are coming to a close. More and more, bloggers and forum posters are being taken to court for libel and defamation and losing.
The first case to be ruled against a blogger was in January this year, after a silly, silly man (opinion is protected speech, so silly is okay to say) had a dispute with his lawyer. This silly, silly man blogged that his lawyer was bribing judges on behalf of drug dealers without any proof whatsoever. That cost him $50,000.
Last month, a message board poster who couldn't afford a lawyer or to appear in court was slapped with an $11 million judgment for calling a Florida woman a crook, a fraud, and a con artist. The jury intstituted the penalty, apparently, just to make an example of her.
Read the rest
here.