State biologist Carl Lackey is suing bear activists over comments posted on the internet. One of the defendants, Mark E. Smith, is responding with a defamation lawsuit against Lackey, along with several other people.
Earlier this year Lackey sued bear activists over comments posted on the internet. He filed his lawsuit against multiple people, claiming their comments online are spreading lies that hurt his reputation. The Nevada Department of Wildlife says they are no way involved in the case.
The lawsuit wasn't aimed at the individuals commenting on the Facebook pages, but instead goes after the admin in charge of the online forums. The comments attacking Lackey were posted to pages called The Lake Tahoe Wall of Shame, the activist group known as the Bear League and also the NDOW Watch- “Keeping Them Transparent” page.
One of the defendants, Carolyn Stark, runs the NDOW Watch- "Keeping Them Transparent" page on Facebook. Her attorney argues that she is not responsible for the comments that others made on her page.
Patrick File, a media law professor at the University of Nevada, says lawsuits like these typically don't go anywhere because of the Communications Decency Act that protects website operators from being liable for what others write online.
"We want the internet to be as free a place for speech as it can possibly be," says File.
File says any limitation on internet speech is considered a problem under the first amendment and that the CDA was originally passed for websites with millions of users like YouTube or Facebook.
"As a practical matter they simply can't monitor every single post that goes up," says File.
He says the other challenge in these cases is whether or not the plaintiff can prove that the comments made online have or will hurt their reputation.
"That they were false, made with knowledge of their falsity, and made with reckless disregard if they were true or not,” says File.
Smith filed his defamation lawsuit on July 13th in civil court against Lackey, and Brian Wakeling, John Robb, ABC Corporation, NDOW and Black and White Companies.
