Free speech on social Web: Canada

Anyone concerned about defamation on the social Web – such as school teachers and administrators – might be interested in a lawsuit filed in Canada by a businessman who says postings in a variety of sites “paint him as disreputable and as a bully.” Writing in the Toronto Star, law professor Michael Geist says that if Wayne Crookes, formerly involved with the Green Party, wins his cases against MySpace, Yahoo, and Wikipedia, among other services, they “could have a significant chilling effect on free speech in Canada.” Geists writes that “the suits would effectively require websites - including anyone who permits comments on a blog or includes links to other sites - to proactively monitor and remove content that may raise liability concerns.” Sites and bloggers would respond by dropping the option for people to add comments. He cites the US’s Child Online Protection Act of 1996, saying “courts in the US have repeatedly denied attempts to hold intermediaries liable for content posted by third parties on the grounds that a 1996 statute provided them with immunity for such postings” and concludes that Canada would do well to introduce a similar provision,” explaining why.