Remember the flashing 12:00’s on VCR’s? Many people who bought video tape recorders could never figure out how to program them. Convenience is a huge factor in media consumption. Is radio the best way to consume audio material? Probably not but it’s ubiquitous and so easy to use you don’t even have to turn it on to wake up in the morning.

Wasik points out that paying is a speed bump in media consumption. It needn’t be an inconvenience. Songs are short media content. Apple’s I-tunes has effectively figured out how to charge for them by providing convenience. Songs are easy to find. There are many opportunities to find similar things. Purchasing is a breeze. You could probably find the song for free elsewhere but it would take more time, it might be a bad recording, there would malware embedded in it. We pay for the convenience of I-tunes.

Likewise there will be a market for short content when an aggregator provides an easy way to find and pay for it and an attractive interface that keeps the browser around. The speed bump of payment can be overcome by an effective micro-payment system that could charge a penny or less for short content.  Even modest payments to content producers will attract the best ones to such a site.

The aggregator’s challenge would be to find a more effective way than Google to put useful content before the viewer. There are at least two other options. Employ social networking to steer people to short content their trusted friends like or use the Pandora model. Pandora’s musicologists break down the elements of each song you like by dozens of factors (beat, vocal quality, tone, instrumentation) to provide an educated guess about what other songs you might like.

Neither. Charging for Hulu will cut back on the number of viewers. Free trumps a charge every time. Viewers will seek out the other free video content available legally or illegally.

For those TV networks using Hulu as a distribution channel this flight will be bad. They need to recoup their costs of production. With falling viewership on regular TV and weak financial support from web distribution they’ll trim back expenses, i.e. more experiments like Leno at 10 pm. They’ll have to reach a point where revenue = production costs + profit.

Media professionals like to think that their superior artistic skills and technical prowess are important to audience. We’re finding out if that’s true. Does the audience really care enough about the current standards of broadcast television production to pay for it? Or will low production cost, good enough TV fill the gap? Or will television professionals have to suck it up and work much less?

Stay tuned.

I’ve been having a hard time with Ryan’s dismissal of the image as a ‘weak and subordinated’ mode of story telling.

He assigns it a secondary role of evoking the story. Steiner’s analysis of Gozzoli’s The Dance of Salome and Beheading of St. John the Baptist makes the case well. It shows how the imagery adds texture and depth to the story but unless you know the story the painting looks merely mysterious. There’s a sophisticated relationship across time between the three story elements that the observer uninformed by text would miss. Without Steiner’s notes I would not have known that Herodias is both the seated figure in center and the standing women in a different hair covering to the right.

But to me the text is often the secondary element and the picture carries the narration.  I pulled out a book of Associated Press photos to look an uncredited black and white photo of a black man hanging from a tree taken in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1935. The caption tells us it’s 32-year-old Rubin Stacy who was lynched by a mob of masked men. Staring at Stacy are four white men in white shirts leaning nonchalantly against trees, one in straw hat.

In the lower left hand foreground of the picture is a young blonde girl staring gravely into the camera and next to her another child holding up a white cloth over his face.  They show sadness and shame that is a strong counter point to the adults. The words in the caption play a secondary role in telling a horrifying story about racism and indifference to violence.

What can we learn about using the image in web-based storytelling from these readings? The sophisticated viewer during the Renaissance may have had the ability to decode the complex relationships between the elements of Gozzoli’s painting but today we’re immersed in visual representations on TV, newspaper and magazine ads, billboards etc.  The average viewer doesn’t have the context to ‘read’ Gozzoli’s work without help. Instead of evoking a story, it requires a lot of text to understand how the picture connects to the story.

Ewert’s chapter on Art Spiegelman’s Maus suggests more useful ways we can consider bringing pictures in to web based story telling. We get comics because we grow up with them so we’re better able appreciate, perhaps unconsciously, the way Spiegelman adds meaning to the story by the image. For example in the picture of Vladek at the concentration camp remembering how he always stood in the second line – ‘I didn’t want them to see me much’ – the faces of all the prisoners are drawn the same with diagonal lies showing their need to blend into the crowd so as to not be called out by the Nazi guards. This visual metaphor of the Vladek’s fear connects.

Newsrooms research and present information to help create a more informed public. Marketing ‘newsrooms’ create information designed to sell stuff. I’ve got nothing against selling stuff. I like buying stuff. But slapping the name ‘newsroom’ on a corporate public relations office is an Orwellian mockery of journalism.  Whew! Got that off my chest. On to the assignment.

I began considering the program 18 months ago out of the concern that the disruption in broadcast media brought about by the Internet would soon engulf public radio. I felt that high-speed Internet access in automobiles would allow listeners to tune into their favorite public radio programs and other audio offerings without listening to public radio stations. This could reduce the audience for stations, hampering on-air and corporate fundraising.

I felt that stations needed to have a strong presence online with easy access to their vast audio archives and use of social media to extend the dialogue about the events, news, politics and culture that we undertake on the air. The challenges are 1 how to maintain public radio station’s strongest asset, the trust of the audience, in a new form of media, 2 how to master the new media.

A year and a half later my goals remain the same but with slightly less urgency.  High speed Internet in cars is still a concept rather than a reality. The loyalty and support of public radio station listeners continues to increase. Radio remains a ubiquitous medium. It wakes people in the morning and remains a companion in cars, the kitchen, while jogging and gardening. The simplicity and convenience of radio combined with the unique worldview offered by public broadcasters remains powerful to the audience.

I go to The New York Times homepage daily but I have watched very few videos. In the course of doing this assignment I found a rich library.

Video integration into the site is low key.  On the right side of the home page the night I looked there was an interactive slide show on the new Spike Jonze movie ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ with photos of the movie and behind the scenes descriptions. I had to scroll down to find my first video, an interview with director Sebastian Silva about his film ‘The Maid’. It was a single shot, 1:47.

Then I noticed the video tab at the top of the homepage. That’s where the action is. When you click through the videos start playing in what appears to be a random stream. The first one I saw was a narrated 2:10 slide show of a fashion show (which I understand if fantastically popular on newspaper web sites. Second was an 8-minute story about how the presence of federal troops has failed to calm the drug war in Juárez, Mexico, and violence has reached an all time high. It included the story of a nun who worked in schools but after being robbed was ordered home. There were graphic images of severed hands and bloody bodies (viewers were warned) that were much more intense than anything on broadcast TV. I though it was high quality video and reporting in the style of 60 minutes. That was followed by a Yahoo ad then a segment on pedicabs in NYC with a sharp reporter asking whether they were just for tourists or something native New Yorkers could use. She gets a pedicab to do her shopping, pick up dry cleaning and run errands. She had a light informal delivery, like she was talking to us rather than reading a script. She talks to a young pedicab driver (called a driver/actor in the text – nice). He teaches the reporter to drive and the last words are him saying  “New York Times reporter kills pedicab driver, film at 11″.

If you want to do more selective viewing, along the left hand side of the page is a list of subject areas, just like in the text edition – International, National, Business, and Entertainment etc. It included a 20-minute documentary on a Pakistani girl who loses her education, framed with graphic shots of women being beaten and shot. Again, nothing you’d see on broadcast TV.

What I liked: Just about everything. I will go back and check this out further. The same high quality and style I expect from the New York Times newspaper came through in my survey of their video offerings.

What I disliked: There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to embed the video in WordPress. Also, I realized that watching a video, even a short entertaining video, is at odds with my usual computer use. I’m constantly jumping to email, scanning a page, clicking on a link, moving along. Watching the videos is rewarding but requires more patience. I think if I hooked my computer up to my TV I would be in the right mindset to spend time with The Times video library.

I had a chance to interview Chris Anderson about his cover ‘Free’ in Wired Magazine, which later became the book. The interview was during the KUOW pledge drive so I said I wanted to talk about public radio a model for monetizing free. He demurred.

“You don’t want me to talk about public radio”, he said. “I’m your worst nightmare”. So I asked why.

“I listen to public radio programs like This American Life as podcasts. I almost never listen to my local public radio station, KQED. When I contribute money I send it directly to the shows I listen to.”

The story illustrates both the promise and pitfalls of ‘free’ as a business model. Public broadcasting’s version of free economy did not arise from a business plan, but from the fevered mind of a pacifist named Lew Hill who founded the Pacific network of radio stations in the late 1960’s. Hill thought directly asking for listener support and not relying on business or government would provide the freedom necessary to present challenging radio programs. The plan is simple. Provide high quality programming which is valuable to listeners and they in turn will voluntarily give you money. Churches have used the model for centuries.

Public radio stations adopted the model (although they do accept federal and institutional support) and, knock wood, have achieved great success. My station, KUOW, is currently holding it’s first on-air fundraising goal with a 1 million dollar + goal and as of this writing, we’re meeting that goal. The history of public radio (and churches) shows that a free model can generate freewill financial contributions if it provides value, trust and unique service. Public radio programming is so expensive to replicate it has never faced a direct challenge in the market.

But the forces Anderson describes as accelerating options for monetizing free also work against older models, like public radio stations. The easy access to individual public radio programs through the internet, podcasts, and cell-phones allows listeners to avoid public radio’s ‘ask’ during pledge drives. The dilemma is that even if public radio programs get direct listener support, for now at least, most of their funding comes from public radio stations, which in turn raise money during pledge drives. This is parallel to the dilemma faced by newspapers that are giving their content away on web site. They’re making money on the web but also cannibalizing the audience for their print versions, which remain their primary source of revenue.

Chris Anderson Interview April 2008

Chris Anderson Interview July 2009 about 35 minutes into the program.

Tell me a story about Seattle – about a neighborhood, subculture, politics (the hotly contested mayor’s race), history (it’s the 10th anniversary of the WTO demonstrations), art, music, sports, people, architecture. Focus on a facet that you feel makes Seattle unique, funny, beautiful, lame,worldly or provincial.

Explore the landscape, transportation, the water (too soon?).  Explore how the outside world views Seattle, a myth about Seattle, truths about Seattle, famous local figures. If you just arrived, what strikes you? If you’ve been here for a long time, tell a story about something you learned. Make a big point about Seattle (there’s a Seattle freeze) or a personal reflection about how the city seems to you.

This idea would work because we all spend at least some time in Seattle. It’s broad enough to encompass many kinds of stories.  It would be fun to see what would emerge from such a varied group of individuals.

Alan Ostrow parses a new Harris survey which shows most adults don’t know enough about twitter to have an opinion about it.

USA Today reports that Stanford is among the schools.

An iPhone Developer University Program launched last fall… allows qualifying colleges and universities to produce iPhone apps at no cost, spurring several institutions to offer a course in the technology.

Final Project for University of Washington Com 588 U.S. Digital Media Law and Policy  Ross Reynolds  June 12, 2009

Subject:
Does the federal law that protects Internet service providers, bloggers and chat rooms from liability for items posted by third parties serve the public interest? If not, how could these rules be modified to better protect the public interest? Would such modifications serve the public interest?

Introduction:

In 1994 at the dawn of the Internet era a popular computer service called Prodigy had a “Money Talk” bulletin board.  An unknown user posted statements suggesting that a securities brokerage firm, Stratton Oakmont, Inc., committed criminal and fraudulent acts in connection with an initial public offering. Stratton sued Prodigy and the anonymous poster in New York state court for defamation. They maintained that Prodigy was the publisher of the remarks because they presented themselves as exercising editorial control over the content on their servers and employed a Board Leader to moderate discussions. The court agreed and Prodigy was held liable.

The case presented a quandary for the new communications sector. Its strength was allowing anyone with a computer to publish to the entire computer-linked world.  But if the venues for this user-generated content were liable for everything published there would be powerful incentives to tamp down the open discussion. Section 230 was explicitly written into the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to overturn the Stratton Oakmont v Prodigy case.

Section 230 lays out the aspirations for the new medium. Congress called the Internet “an extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources to our citizens” offering “a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity”.  Congress said it is United States policy to “promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media” and “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation… to the benefit of all Americans”.

In the 13 years since, the regulations have nurtured the Internet to the benefit of most, but not all, Americans.  Some Americans feel they have been harmed been harmed by the way Congress acted: the mother of an 11 year old boy who was lured into sexual activity with two other boys by a man who later offered for sale photos and videotapes online; members of college athletic teams who learned they had been secretly videotaped in the locker room and those video tapes were sold over the Internet through; a man defamed by an anonymous AOL subscriber who said the man was selling a tasteless t-shirt about the Oklahoma City federal building bombing;  a Portland, Oregon woman who charged that  her ex-boyfriend posted nude photos taken of her without her knowledge or consent on Yahoo. In each case the perpetrator was liable, but the Internet service that conveyed the information was held harmless. This is because Section 230 treats the Internet differently than other communications media.

Section 230
Common law and American courts have found that with a few exceptions repeating defamation makes you as guilty as the original defamer – “tale bearers are as bad as tale makers”.  If you slander or libel someone, you are liable. If you publish the defamation, you are also responsible.  Broadcast and print media outlets that pass on defamatory material created by others, i.e. a listener call on a radio program, a paid ad or a letter to the editor, are as liable as the creators of the material.  (Hyland)

However, the law has held distributors of defamatory information are not legally liable. The phone company is not responsible for defamatory remarks made in a phone call. The postal service is not liable for defamatory material sent through the mail. Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 upends that formula on the Internet. (Hyland)

It says “no 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”.  The act goes on to define information content provider as “any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service”.  The courts have interpreted this to cover any Internet service that includes user-generated content – bloggers, social networks, bulletin boards, comment sections, chat rooms.  Effectively this means that service providers, social networks, on-line stores are held harmless for any defamatory content generated by 3rd parties on their web sites.  On the Internet the tale bearer is not as bad as the tale maker.

The results have been dramatic. User-generated content is a key element of what makes the Internet unique and useful.  Instead of requiring access to a radio or TV station or a printing press, the Internet allows bloggers, user reviews on Amazon.com and Yelp, comment boards, and social networks like Facebook and MySpace creating millions of forums for spirited discussion and criticism. It has allowed everyone on the Internet access to the views of everyone else, virtually unfettered and unfiltered.  As anyone who has perused the comments section on a newspaper web site sees, this has brought out copious amounts of uninformed, bigoted, and flat wrong nonsense. But even that has value.  Former Washington Post editor Doug Feaver recently wrote in defense of “anonymous, unmoderated, often appallingly inaccurate, sometimes profane, frequently off point and occasionally racist reader comments”. Feaver wrote -  “I believe that it is useful to be reminded bluntly that the dark forces are out there and that it is too easy to forget that truth by imposing rules that obscure it. As Oscar Wilde wrote in a different context, “Man is least in himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.””
But what happens if what the man behind the mask says is not only false, it defames someone else, subjecting that person to public humiliation, injuring their reputation and endangering their livelihood? What if the man behind the mask uses his free speech to victimize children.

Does Section 230 Allow Defamation?

The first case brought using the Section 230 defense following passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was Zeran v America Online. Ken Zeran said he was defamed by an anonymous American Online (AOL) subscriber who put up a fake ads for t-shirts glorifying the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building with slogans like “Visit Oklahoma…It’s a BLAST!!!”, “Putting the kids to bed…Oklahoma 1995″, and “McVeigh for President 1996″. Zeran’s home phone number was in the post. He was barraged by threatening phone calls and unable to use his phone for work. Zeran was so unsafe the FBI put him in protective custody.

AOL took down the ads. New ads appeared and they were taken down. The account of the anonymous AOL user was cancelled. Zeran sued AOL for defamation. AOL cited Section 230 in its defense and won. There is little doubt that the material posted on AOL materially harmed Zeran. But Section 230’s provision holding the AOL harmless as distributor of the defamatory material was a perfect defense.

In 2000 a John Doe and other members of the football team at Illinois State University, wrestlers at Northwestern University, and varsity athletes from several other universities sued Franco productions and GTE over videotapes of the athletes secretly recorded in locker rooms with titles like “Voyeur Time” and “Between the Lockers” that Franco sold through advertising on GTE hosted web sites including “youngstuds.com”.  GTE successfully evoked Section 230 to get the case dismissed. One of the dissenting judges wrote that the court had misconstrued Section 230, particularly the section titled ‘Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material’.  He said such a title was highly inappropriate if it ended up discouraging Internet service providers from doing anything about the distribution of indecent and offensive materials.

In 2005 an Oregon woman, Cecelia Barnes, sued Yahoo because her ex-boyfriend posted her nude photos without her consent and posed as her in a Yahoo chatroom soliciting sex. Barnes said she notified Yahoo and an official promised to immediately remove the photos. Nevertheless the profile stayed up for months.  Barnes was barraged by unwelcome email, phone calls, and visits to her workplace by men looking for sex.

The May 2009 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling said the case ” stems from a dangerous, cruel and highly indecent use of the Internet for the apparent purpose of revenge”.  Nevertheless the court ruled that Yahoo was protected from liability for materials published or posted on their sites by outside parties by Section 230.  The court said it didn’t matter if Yahoo was negligent for failing to immediately remove the material.  The court likened Yahoo to a phone company that would not be liable for private conversations used to plan crimes. But phone conversations are one to one, while a Yahoo profile or chat room presence is open to a huge potential audience.  Barnes’ attorney said Internet service providers are getting a “blanket immunity” that “doesn’t make sense.” (McCall)

Hyland suggests that Section 230 tips the balance between reputational rights and the free flow of information too far in favor of web services. She argues that it provides a safe haven for defamation that harms the utility of the web. Her solution would be to make web operators liable for defamatory material they distribute under the actual malice standard. If the plaintiff could prove the web operator left up a defamatory statement long after it was known to be false, the case could proceed. But there would be two additional hoops the plaintiff would have to clear to prove actual malice.

First, did the web service allow the person who was allegedly defamed respond to the comments and did that person respond. Was there a dialogue between the plaintiff and the web service? This is in keeping with First Amendment free speech standards that favor a marketplace of ideas where more speech is preferred to squelching speech.  Secondly, if issues of social and political importance were discussed it would be a defense against actual malice. This defense might be applicable in a case where the defamatory material involved a public official’s conduct doing the public’s business.
Hyland’s suggestion that the utility of the web is endangered by Internet defamation is not backed by evidence. In fact by virtually every measure, Internet utility continues to rise as new services draw in more people.

Nevertheless cases like Ken Zeran and Cecelia Barnes lay bare the harm caused by the free wheeling nature of user-generated content on the web. It’s fine to say we should see the unfiltered cesspool of public opinion in order to better know the make-up of our citizenry, but once the malevolence is directed against an innocent person, the Internet amplifies the impact to cruelty and causes material harm. It’s hard to imagine Zeran or Barnes taking much comfort in knowing that Section 230 also allows them access to public reviews of that blender they were thinking about buying on Amazon.
But broadly speaking those benefits accrue to the vast majority of users compared to the numbers who are harmed by Internet defamation. Opening the door for actual malice complaints would place a massive burden on ISP’s, social networks and bloggers. Those who would shut down speech not because it was defamatory, but because it was critical, would have the leverage to tie the Internet up in knots with the result that user generated comment would be squelched. The issues become more complex when we look at the potential harm to children.

Is Section 230 Potentially Harmful to Children?

Section 230 says Internet service providers, bloggers and social networks or users are not held harmless in cases when there has been a violation of any Federal criminal statute relating to obscenity or the sexual exploitation of children.  But in cases involving alleged violation of state laws for the protection of children, Section 230 has shielded social networks.

In the Doe v MySpace case a female minor registered with MySpace contacted a 19 year old boy. They met and he sexually assaulted her. The girl and her mother sued MySpace and parent company News Corp. for negligence, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.  They charged that MySpace did not do enough to protect minors. The federal court in Texas dismissed the case, finding that it was not really a case about negligence; it was actually about content published on MySpace. Under Section 230, the host of the content is held harmless.  (Dardia)

John Palfrey, Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School has written that it’s plausible for the law to hold a web site harmless for defamatory statements posted by 3rd parties. But he writes that Section 230 should not prevent parents from bringing a claim of negligence against social networking sites. He writes “there is no reason why a social network should be protected from liability related to the safety of young people simply because its business operates online.”
Palfrey contends that most social networks do a good job in protecting young people from harm and would not be liable. But allowing the possibility they could be liable would spur them to continue their innovation to protect kids. He says that parents whose children have been harmed should be able to argue that social networks have been negligent.
“If a given social network, situated as the defendant in a similar case, were taking no steps to protect kids, or, worse, doing things affirmatively to encourage dangerous behavior, they would be found liable—on a sliding scale—for harm done to the child.”
Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation argues for the current system of social norms and self-regulation.
“The tricky part of it comes down to the unwritten test or standard regarding exactly how much affirmative policing of user behavior we should expect sites to do before they would be free from negligence claims… I don’t want to see that become a bright-line legal test; indeed, I have trouble imagining what that test would look like.”
Thierer also suggests that tougher legal line on negligence might drive companies offshore where they would not be subject to social norms like industry best practices.
As comforting as it might be to assume that a law can be drawn to protect children, Internet companies themselves have a strong incentive to be watchful. In the 2006 film ‘Little Children’ a man who has served a prison sentence for indecent exposure to a minor, has moved back into the neighborhood to live with his mother. On a hot summer’s day he goes to a neighborhood swimming pool filled with children. At one point, one of the mothers recognizes him. The children are immediately pulled out of the pool, the man stand alone until police come and walk him away.
That level of revulsion would apply to any web site where children were victimized. The Disney Company runs a social web site for children ages 7 to 14 called Penguin Island. Kids take on penguin identities to play games and solve puzzled with other kids and their parents. Eight million kids participate. The President of Penguin Island claims they have never allowed any harm to come to children because of their negligence on their site. The loss of reputation and revenue they would suffer from allowing exploitation of children is so swift and devastating to their businesses is a huge incentive to be careful. It’s not the law that keeps them vigilant. It’s the their bottom line.
Furthermore it is the parent’s responsibility to monitor the home computer use of their children. If a child has access to a computer in the home, parents should know how that computer is being used. There are ample methods to monitor web sites visited and even what communication is sent. If parents cannot figure out the methods to monitor their children’s web use, they can always lock down the computer entirely or only allow use when they can watch over the children’s shoulder. A child’s misuse of the home computer is because of parental negligence.
Conclusion
In retrospect the drafters of Section 230 should not have claimed a free market for the Internet is to the benefit of “all Americans”. They did not foresee the harm caused by nefarious people who use the tool of the Internet to besmirch ex-girlfriends and victimize minors. So do we just shrug our shoulders and say there will be a few victims, such in the price of free speech? As a matter of law, I would say yes. Allowing liability for actual malice or allowing exceptions in Section 230 for cases involving children will protect a few but silence too many. Social network and Internet Service providers will, under the shield of protecting people from defamation or children from exploitation, shut down free speech rather than risk legal retribution. They’ll have the perfect defense in the court of public opinion by saying what can we do, the law tells us to place potential harm above free speech.
Meanwhile the hurly burly of the blogosphere, populated by people with much shallower pockets than the major corporations who run the ISPs and social networking sites, would be even more vulnerable. The price of allowing an offending comment would be their demise, not just an expensive lawsuit. But there are many other levers of power to prevent Internet service providers, social networks and bloggers from ignoring potential harm.
The Internet allows instant organization of protest, as we saw when Facebook recently tried to change terms of service and users revolted. In 2007 a blogger who goes by the handle Rudd-O posted a series of letters and numbers that could be used break the encryption of a new high definition DVD format. The blog post shot to top ranking of the social bookmarking site Digg.com, a web site that tallies the popularity of blog posts. The trade secrets revealed by breaking encryption are one exception to Section 230 protections. It’s against the law to have such third party material on your blog or web site. Attorneys for the movie industry sent a cease and desist letter to DIGG to take down the offending post.
DIGG had not hacked the code. DIGG had not written the post. It merely ranked the posting using automated algorithms. Initially DIGG took down the post and was showered with complaints from users for capitulating to the movie industry. But the cease and desist order proved ineffective.  By the end of the day the code was posted on 3,172 other blogs. One “keithburgun” posted an acoustic guitar version of the twenty-hexadecimal-digit encryption code in a You-Tube video.  The next day DIGG put Rudd-0’s post with the code back up. (Li)
The message was the legal route has limited effectiveness. A blogger who consistently allowed harmful comments would lose the one thing they count on- the trust of the readers. The corporation that would allow widespread defamation would lose the confidence of users, who would move on to a safer locale.  At the end of the day reputation, and threat of losing it, is the strongest incentive for Internet entities to carefully police 3rd party comments.
We should be clear that Section 230 in no way prevents people who have been defamed from going after the defamer. Are Internet entities as guilty because they are ‘tale bearers’? Although there are clear differences between telephone companies and Internet service providers, they are more alike than different in that their core function is not producing material but to conveying material.
Finally, should the harm caused by trolls on the web outweigh the benefits Hyland is right, the utility of the web will diminish and people will abandon it. The communication medium has a perfect self-correcting mechanism. Your computer has an ‘off’ switch.

Works Cited

Dardia, J. (2007). Doe v. MySpace. Retrieved May 9, 2009, from Citizen Media Law Project: http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/doe-v-myspace#description

Feaver, D. (2009, April 9). Listening to Dot-Commentators. The Washington Post .

Hyland, A. (2008, Fall). The Taming of the Internet A New Approach to Third Party Internet Defamation. Hastings Communications & Entertainment Law Journal , pp. 79-126.

Li, C. B. (2008). Groundswell. Harvard University Press.

McCall, W. (2009, May 11). Yahoo wins round in Oregon nude photo case. Seattle Post-Intelligencer .

Palfrey, J. (2008) Born Digital: Understanding The First Generation of Digital Natives, Basic Books.

Palfrey, J.  (2009, March 5). Dialogue: the future of online obscenity and social networks. Retrieved from Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/a-friendly-exchange-about-the-future-of-online-liability.ars

Sampson, M. (n.d.). John Doe v Franco Production et al. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from Internet Library of Law and Court Decisions: http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case253.cfm