You bet your fascisticly-creepy stylized two-headed eagle it will!
IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY GOVERNMENT.
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Posted on 01/29/2014 7:14:41 AM PST by conniew
By Andrew Duffy, OTTAWA CITIZEN January 28, 2014
OTTAWA — The online political forum, Free Dominion, has shut down after a wholesale defeat in a libel case brought by Ottawa human rights lawyer Richard Warman.
A jury concluded that Warman was maliciously defamed by four commentators on Free Dominion, a website that bills itself as “the voice of principled conservatism.”
Warman has been awarded more than $127,000 in general damages, aggravated damages, punitive damages and court costs because of 41 defamatory statements published on the conservative website in 2007.
Warman rose to prominence during the past decade by using the Canadian Human Rights Act to shut down the websites of people spreading hate speech; it made him the target of free speech advocates in the conservative blogosphere, and on websites such as Free Dominion.
In a recently released decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith granted Warman a permanent injunction that prohibits Free Dominion from ever repeating “in any manner whatsoever” any of the 41 defamations.
The website’s operators, Connie and Mark Fournier, of Kingston, this week shut down freedominion.ca, saying they could not control what comments other people posted.
“By leaving the forum open and allowing people to comment, we’d be opening ourselves to a contempt-of-court charge,” Connie Fournier said Tuesday.
“If someone repeated one of those comments, we would be in trouble — and could even go to jail.”
The Fourniers have operated the website as a “labour of love” for the past 13 years.
“It’s really sad to be at the point where we have to shut down the political forum,” she said. “But we’ve come to the point where it would be crazy for us to keep it open: it would be too much of a risk.”
They have vowed to appeal the defamation case and have launched a campaign on Indiegogo.com to raise money for their legal costs. The campaign has so far raised $2,800 of its $25,000 goal.
The Warman case is among the first to address at trial what constitutes defamation in the caustic political blogosphere. It adds to case law that suggests the Internet does not shield anonymous posters from legal action if they wrongfully attack someone’s reputation.
On his website, Warman said the case offers lessons for anyone involved in an Internet blog or forum. Chief among them, he said, is the idea that “If you make a mistake, admit it, repair the harm, and move on.”
Connie Fournier, however, said that if the case stands on appeal it will impair the once vibrant Canadian blogosphere.
“I think this is a terrible thing for free speech on the Internet,” she said. “When people who are allowing comments on their blogs and forums look at humongous costs and damage rulings like this, at injunctions that could put them in jail, they’re not going to want to take the risk of opening their site.”
The jury found that the four defendants — Roger Smith, Jason Bertucci, Connie and Mark Fournier — had been “malicious, high-handed and oppressive” in their conduct. Justice Smith also found the defendants had acted unreasonably by refusing to accept Warman’s offer to settle the case for $5,000 each.
Warman had to fight in court to obtain the identifies of those anonymous posters who had left defamatory comments on Free Dominion. The case dragged on for six years, culminating in a three-week trial before a six-person jury.
The Fourniers have never apologized or issued a retraction about the statements found to be defamatory.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Thank you! Good luck with your site. I hope you will keep me in the loop as it develops!
I’m sorry to hear this, Connie. I too, like some others was a member of FD and used to love seeing the perspectives of our neighbors to the north. It was my first stop whenever FR would crash, as somebody would usually post something in your home-away-from-home for Freepers to explain whatever was wrong with FR that day.
It’s a monumental injustice. I have to think your appeal will succeed. I shudder to think what will happen if it does not.
At the very least, we need this in Canada. But I really think that defamation law has no place being applied to the internet at all. There are other laws to protect people from legitimate cyber-harassment.
It is in Panama. Has been there for about six years. But, because we live in Canada, they can come after us.
I gave this link to our regulars!
Thank you for your service.
We always enjoyed it when our FRiends would come and pay us a visit, too. :-)
So theoretically anyone who doesn't like a particular site could post ‘defamatory’ comments on that site and get it shut down? With that approach in place, it would be relatively easy to put together organized efforts to control opinion on the internet.
If a significant number of people started anonymously posting these kinds of ‘defamatory’ comments on sites all over the internet, the system might become inundated with complaints, and maybe then the courts and legislature would reconsider the law and their approach to free speech.
How sad that is.
Can the Canadian government interfere with foreign websites? Why don’t they just post anonymously somewhere else? Here, maybe???
Could be. I would say that it was my bet, not something that is a definitive statement. I can have an opinion. I suspect someone stated some facts that weren’t true and that got them in serious trouble. I would at least hope it reached some bar equal to slander or whatever. If someone’s thoughts are fair game, everyone is in serious trouble, and I’m not just referring to the internet.
Do you know what the current laws in the US are regarding posting information and commenting online? When it comes to posting comments, at least in the US, the only types of online comments that have gotten someone into legal trouble are those that involved threatening someone’
s immediate safety and/or repeated stalking of someone online. Of course, a few of those cases have already grown to ridiculous proportions, see the Justin Carter case in Texas last year, for instance. Do you know what the official rules are?
This is also for anyone else on this thread who is particularly knowledgeable.
As i recall Free-dominion was not even being hosted in Canada anymore because of this very fact. It apparently makes no difference. Like China, Canada will hunt down disagreeable political speech from its citizens around the world.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened but I do recall Free Dominion being setup, where it wasn’t even practical possible for them to comply with Warman’s demands. Im not sure there is any of form kind in Canada that is safe from people Warman so long as Canada retains such repressive anti-free speech laws.
This is a matter that Prime Minster Steven Harper should be called to address, for it holds great implcations for all Canadains.
Short of that the solution is obvious the owners of Freedominion should allow an American to “Acquire” the website & its databases for hosting & ownership over here.
I know there are more than a few of us to pick from.
Unbelievable. And kind of unsettling to see this happen right next door.
One they you do need to do is get your “conservative” prime-minster to raise a finger of awareness about the rights of all Canadians to free speech now being usurped.
Until then i think its no small thing to simply transfer the site to the US with US ownership.(by someone who can tell the totalitarian Canadian injustice system to take a hike)
Things may be bad and getting worse down here, but we haven’t fallen that far yet.
Speaking the truth is a crime in Canada. In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act (Orwell)...
To be defamatory, it must.
Be false.
Be intended to harm.
And actually harm.
Did they prove their case, or has the court its head up its butt?
You bet your fascisticly-creepy stylized two-headed eagle it will!
| IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY GOVERNMENT.
|
|
| The Tao of Republican Orthodoxy [Direct Link] |
The Modern Democratic Party & You [Direct Link] |
“Good luck to you, the harshness of the sentance will help you on appeal “
Yes that seems right. Can this guy show 127,000 dollars of economic or mental health damage ?
I suspect not.
bump
and it is a cool creepy two-headed Eagle
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