Don’t Shoot The Messenger

A recent decision by a US court might mean sound sleep tonight for the owners of websites.

Online bulletin board, Craigslist, was found not liable for users posting discriminatory advertisements, a US court has ruled.

“Judge Frank Easterbrook said the Chicago lawyers could not “sue the messenger just because the message reveals a third party’s plan to engage in unlawful discrimination”.

What this establishes is a discrimination between folks publishing discriminatory views and third party publishes which merely provide the forum for publication.

Besides a good night’s sleep, I took from this how exciting this new frontier we’re traversing is. In law, many of the rules that have been established so far and will be established in the future are based on precedents set in publishing generally. However, the web is a beast of a slightly different nature in regard to, amongst other things, the capacity of companies to merely provide the tools for publication. I love how this gives us guys, who are at the forefront of such an amazing tool, to shape the world we wanna live in.

Kinda makes me feel powerful…like Van Hielsing slaying the vampires and stuff…