{"id":1669,"date":"2008-07-13T20:05:26","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T02:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=1669"},"modified":"2012-01-20T21:53:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-21T03:53:47","slug":"bloggers-have-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/bloggers-have-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloggers Have Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/eff.org\/bloggers\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload alignright\" style=\"border: 0pt none; float: right;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%27%20width%3D%27148%27%20height%3D%27120%27%20viewBox%3D%270%200%20148%20120%27%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%27148%27%20height%3D%27120%27%20fill-opacity%3D%220%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" data-orig-src=\"http:\/\/eff.org\/bloggers\/badges\/bloggers-legal-148x120px.png\" alt=\"Bloggers' Rights at EFF\" width=\"148\" height=\"120\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Bloggers have rights, and it&#8217;s important for them to know about them. It&#8217;s becoming more common for companies to issue cease and desist letters to bloggers who print negative reviews of their products or services. But bloggers don&#8217;t have to be bullied! There is a right of free speech in America, and that gives bloggers the right to state their opinions on anything.<\/p>\n<p>The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an organization that helps bloggers know their legal rights so they&#8217;re not abused by companies that just don&#8217;t want others to know that you think their programs, products, or services suck.<\/p>\n<p>Below is <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/bloggers\/\">some helpful information<\/a> put out by EFF, and I recommend that you visit their site for more information on your rights. Don&#8217;t let a company bully you into keeping your opinions quiet!<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Bloggers can be journalists (and journalists can be bloggers)<\/strong> &#8211; We&#8217;re battling for legal and institutional recognition that if you engage in journalism, you&#8217;re a journalist, with all of the attendant rights, privileges, and protections. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/Censorship\/Apple_v_Does\/\">Apple v. Does<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bloggers are entitled to free speech<\/strong> &#8211; We&#8217;re working to shield you from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits. Internet bullies shouldn&#8217;t use copyright, libel, or other claims to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chillingeffects.org\/\">chill<\/a> your legitimate speech. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/legal\/ISP_liability\/OPG_v_Diebold\/\">OPG v. Diebold<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bloggers have the right to political speech<\/strong> &#8211; We&#8217;re working with a number of other public-interest organizations to ensure that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) doesn&#8217;t gag bloggers&#8217; election-related speech. We argue that the FEC should adopt a presumption against the regulation of election-related speech by individuals on the Internet, and interpret the existing media exemption to apply to online media outlets that provide news reporting and commentary regarding an election &#8212; including blogs. (See our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdt.org\/speech\/political\/20050603cdtcomments.pdf\">joint comments to the FEC<\/a>; [PDF, 332K].)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bloggers have the right to stay anonymous<\/strong> &#8211; We&#8217;re continuing our <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/Privacy\/Anonymity\/cyberslapp.php\">battle<\/a> to protect and preserve your constitutional right to anonymous speech online, including providing a guide to help you with strategies for keeping your identity private when you blog. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/Privacy\/Anonymity\/blog-anonymously.php\">How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bloggers have freedom from liability for hosting speech the same way other web hosts do<\/strong> &#8211; We&#8217;re working to strengthen <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/bloggers\/lg\/faq-230.php\">Section 230 liability protections<\/a> under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) while spreading the word that bloggers are entitled to them. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/w2.eff.org\/Censorship\/SLAPP\/Defamation_abuse\/Barrett_v_Clark\/\">Barrett v. Rosenthal<\/a>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloggers have rights, and it&#8217;s important for them to know about them. It&#8217;s becoming more common for companies to issue cease and desist letters to bloggers who print negative reviews of their products or services. But bloggers don&#8217;t have to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-qV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}