{"id":1761,"date":"2010-06-15T13:48:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-15T20:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1761"},"modified":"2013-07-16T11:27:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T18:27:22","slug":"christian-broadcasting-network-v-news-corpse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1761","title":{"rendered":"Christian Broadcasting Network v. News Corpse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Christian Broadcasting Network, home of The 700 Club, has notified News Corpse of a defamatory posting on this web site. I received an email from their legal team that included an attached letter (pdf)<\/a> from Louis Isakoff, Vice President and General Counsel of Pat Robertson’s Regent University. Isakoff is representing Pat Robertson’s son (and CBN’s CEO), Gordon. The letter said in part:<\/p>\n

“It has recently been brought to our attention that your internet site, newscorpse.com, has posted comments from Cheryl Spencer which are false, misleading, and defamatory. A copy of that post is included with this letter. The posting accused Mr. Robertson of adultery. Obviously this accusation is inaccurate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The letter goes on to demand that I “remove the posting immediately”<\/i> to “avoid legal action”<\/i> against me. The posting in question<\/a> is over two years old and it did not address Robertson in any way. It was about the hiring of the late Tony Snow, former Fox News host and Bush press secretary, by CNN. The offending material was contained in a comment made by a reader. Cheryl Spencer, whom I do not know, made a comment, that I did not endorse, concerning Robertson’s marital fidelity. News Corpse, as an advocate for higher standards in the media, respects free speech and provides an open forum for opinion from all ideological perspectives.<\/p>\n

CBN and Robertson are demonstrating a rare measure of sensitivity by bringing down the hammer on a small Internet publisher of opinion over an old article that didn’t even mention their client. Isakoff may be a Yale lawyer and the head of the legal division of a big university and media enterprise, but he is woefully uninformed on matters of new media publishing and free expression. Had he taken the time to research the matter, he would have quickly discovered that US Code Title 47, Chapter 5, Sub-Chapter II, Part I, \u00a7 230(c)<\/a> provides immunity from any cause of action related to comments posted on blogs:<\/p>\n

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker<\/b>
\nNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is an abundance of case law affirming the protection for bloggers from lawsuits stemming from comments made by readers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> and the Citizen Media Law Project<\/a> have extensive documentation of this. And that protection even applies when a blogger is notified of an allegedly defamatory comment and declines to remove it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I can’t say whether this misunderstanding of the law is typical of Regent University lawyers, but there are certainly curious circumstances<\/a> associated with that crowd. The Bush administration hired some 150 of them, including White House counsel Monica Goodling, who took the fifth before a congressional committee investigating the potentially illegal firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bushies for partisan political reasons. And the presence of 150 lawyers in the Bush Department of Justice from a single Christian law school that was less than thirty years old is startling and unprecedented.<\/p>\n

I have no intention of removing the comment posted on my site. I believe that the demand by CBN is without merit and is deliberately intended to harass me and to stifle free expression. This sort of bullying tactic has a chilling effect<\/a> on individuals and organizations who seek only to exercise their Constitutional rights and provide forums for others to do so as well. It’s disappointing to see a religious institution, who’s rights are protected by the very same Constitutional amendment, exploit their power by threatening innocent authors and publishers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Christian Broadcasting Network, home of The 700 Club, has notified News Corpse of a defamatory posting on this web site. I received an email from their legal team that included an attached letter (pdf) from Louis Isakoff, Vice President and General Counsel of Pat Robertson’s Regent University. Isakoff is representing Pat Robertson’s son (and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[56,1,7],"tags":[771,772,773,160,774],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship","category-general","category-internet-freedom","tag-christian-broadcasting-network","tag-gordon-robertson","tag-louis-isakoff","tag-pat-robertson","tag-regent-university"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-sp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11131,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=11131","url_meta":{"origin":1761,"position":0},"title":"Coming Soon To Fox News: Dick Dynasty With ‘Hateful Phil’ Robertson","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/21\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Fox News has announced the signing of former Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson to an exclusive contract to host a new program on the cable news network. In the wake of the controversy over anti-gay remarks made by Robertson, The A&E Network put the Duck Dynasty star on an indefinite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News - Dick Dynasty","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/foxnews-dick-dynasty.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35153,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35153","url_meta":{"origin":1761,"position":1},"title":"How Desperate is Donald Trump Right Now? He’s Turning to ‘God’ for Help","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/12\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This week has served up some of the most damning evidence of presidential malfeasance since Donald Trump was elected. He just returned from a catastrophically embarrassing European junket where he was politically and personally isolated. Then his ethically-challenged son confessed to various election-related crimes, including collusion with Russia. Reports from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-laying-hands.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-laying-hands.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-laying-hands.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":30634,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=30634","url_meta":{"origin":1761,"position":2},"title":"Watch The Insane Video Endorsement Of Ted Cruz From The Duck Dynasty Klan","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/14\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The 2016 presidential election is shaping up to be the first Reality TV campaign. Not only is the Republican front-runner the former star of a washed up celebrity game show, but now the biggest endorsement of the year has come from another surreality crackpot, Phil Robertson of Dick...er...Duck Dynasty. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ted Cruz - Phil Robertson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cruz-robertson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cruz-robertson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cruz-robertson.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1256,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1256","url_meta":{"origin":1761,"position":3},"title":"BREAKING: Fox News Switches Parties","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/28\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In a stunning and unexpected development, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and the CEO of its parent corporation News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, appeared at a hastily assembled news conference this afternoon to announce that they are abandoning their long-time affiliation with the Republican Party in favor of a political organization\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10164,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10164","url_meta":{"origin":1761,"position":4},"title":"Who Asked This: “Do You Think Obama Is A Crypto-Muslim?”","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/16\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll give you three guesses. 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