[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger of losing immunity under the Communications Decency Act

[Anthony]

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> But if the purpose of our engagement with the community of editors is
> to empower them to add to the availability of the sum of human
> knowledge, then it makes sense to empower the community to fix as many
> problems with the content they provide as possible, rather than take
> that responsibility away from them and place it in, say, me or Sue or
> Cary. So I prefer to advise community members rather than give them
> orders (as if they felt any obligation to follow my orders, which
> hardly anyone does), and I believe it's wiser to reserve my own
> ability to remove content even though Sec. 230 allows it.  That may
> seem like an "absolutely terrible decision" to you (not merely
> terrible, but "absolutely" so!), but perhaps you're a better attorney
> than I am.
>
One other point, and then I'm done for the day.  What is the
foundation going to do when the people who would otherwise sue the
foundation realize they can't do so and turn to the community members
who implement these "suggestions" and sue them instead?  Will it help
them defend themselves, or will it leave them to fend for themselves?
Either way, the Section 230 protections of these volunteers is likely
weaker, so the cost for them to defend themselves will likely be
greater.

I guess most of them do have going for them the same luxury as I do,
though - that of being too poor to bother suing.