[Vision2020] Bill Moore - First Step Internet

ML394 ml394 at hushmail.com
Wed Nov 30 14:16:45 PST 2011


What I heard about First Step Internet is this:

Due to the way the forum posts are being tracked by Google these days,
anyone can come on this forum and claim to be a person who they are
not.  Anyone can say anything about someone else (even slander them)
and those posts will be tracked by Google and connected to the name of
the slandered person.

In fact, most of the email addresses used to post to this forum could
never be tracked or traced to the name on the forum post.  There is no
easy way to prove that any of the forum members are who they claim to
be.

So, if someone were to claim on this forum to be BILL MOORE, who loves
to steal money, commit crimes and wants others to share in his life of
self-debasement, there would be no way to prove that BILL MOORE did
not author the post.  And yet the slander remains online.  And we all
know that Bill Moore of First Step Internet is hardly a degenerate. 
He is one of the most upstanding people in the area, a man who stands
for freedom of speech and the freedom to slander people, too.

First Step Internet assumes no liability for the posts on this forum,
but according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation hosting a forum
which enables members to slander people by name and not just by their
screen name creates a legal liability for the hosting company.  In
this case, First Step Internet is legally responsible for actually
promoting the Vision 2020 forum on Google and other search engines. 
First Step Internet is legally responsible for the slander its members
write about others.

The way I look at it, the longer First Step Internet lets Google track
the slanderous comments that have been made on the forum the greater
the liability.  And First Step Internet would be out of business
quickly.

While I appreciate how important First Step Internet has been in the
development of government-funded, rural internet access and the
development of Vision 2020, I am certain that First Step Internet
would be better off (from a legal standpoint) making Vision 2020 a
private forum that promotes free speech but does not allow search
engines to track the content of its posts.
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