Blogger jailed over critical restaurant review

Taipei Times ^ | 6/23/11 | Lin Liang-che

[libertarian27]

Best to snip my whole sentence for referencing
(bad excerpting on your part- lmao [I love ya' excerptgunner - I chastise excerpting blog posters too])

I more "trust" a blogger for information nowadays than a reporter (and I trust no one these days for the most part)

We're all somewhat like mini-bloggers here on this site, relaying information and thoughts to each other - I trust more people here than the NYT at this point - spelling errors and all...

So, where's this blog about a giant squid eating Japan? Did they kill it? I've got a wicked fried squid recipe.....I wonder if fried giant squid is tough?....I won't be asking the Taiwan blogger from the start of this thread to investigate...I think she's tied up with other things.

[humblegunner]

We're all somewhat like mini-bloggers here on this site

No.

The vast majority of us are not trying to drive traffic offsite to get hits and advertising revenue.

Try again.

[libertarian27]

You know what I mean and I know what you mean (I don’t like money excerpters here either - I’ve rattled off on those blog pimp threads too)

A poor blogger getting thrown in jail for a seemingly honest review, “I thought the meal was salty” is the thread at hand and somehow it gets morphed into “I’m glad she got jail time - I hate bloggers, they have no integrity” - and all “real” reporters have integrity? Just because they work for a ‘legit’ agency?

If a blogger posts their whole article I’m cool with their post, if they excerpt- I’m not too....but that has nothing to do with who I choose to read and believe if something is salty or not....

Apples and Oranges are getting mixed up here, and there’s no room for these grapes....

(fyi - I don’t blog - I post -and if I did blog I wouldn’t excerpt it here:>)

[humblegunner]

A poor blogger getting thrown in jail for a seemingly honest review

Contrast that against all the bloggers that make money ripping off videos and content.

There SHOULD be consequences.

The majority of bloggers are scum.

No training, no accountability, no investment, no ability to be hired for their "skill".

I just don't think much of 'em, it's true.

[50mm]

If the character Cliff Klaven from Cheers were to pick a profession other than mail carrier/know-it-all, it would be blogger. No doubt about it.

[libertarian27]

I just don't think much of 'em, it's true.

I don't either - the one's who excerpt here drive me batty. Some are interesting though...and I only find that out if they don't excerpt...because if they excerpt they are filthy blog pimps - lol- If they don't excerpt I treat it as a vanity post...heck, most NYTime articles are vanity posts :>)

[Eaker]

All that because of an obvious joke?

This makes me seriously doubt your rationality and certainly your objectivity.

Your post reminds me of the FReepers who freaked out during the World Cup when some of us made it clear what we thought about a bunch of drunks blowing toy horns and watching kickball. It actually seemed to cause physical pain when it was pointed out that they looked like a bunch of idiots watching a children’s game. They actually tried to explain to us why we should like something that we will never like. Absolutely ridiculous.

Many of us don’t have a higher opinion of bloggers than we do of kickball fans. Especially when they get all long winded trying to explain that they are relevant.

[shibumi]

"All that because of an obvious joke?"

Well, a rational, objective and resourceful person would have clicked on my profile page, in a effort to perhaps get a clue where I was coming from.

Reading about halfway down, they would have found he following bit of self-description that's been there for almost seven years:

"Sense of Humor: You'd never know by looking at me, but I'm almost never serious. "

The rational person reading that and perhaps remembering Swift's "Modest Proposal" from their high school English class might have inferred that what I wrote was in jest.

I do ~so~ hate to tag every bit of tongue in cheek, satire or witticism for fear of misinterpretation. It destroys the effect of the joke and insults ~most~ of the audience.

[SoCal SoCon]

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[Tamar1973]

Taiwan is not the only country that has ridiculous libel laws that protect a business's right to advertise whatever way they want but deny journalists and bloggers the right to disagree with them or call them out on thier spin. In most countries, truth or even opinion is not a defense against a libel suit.

There was an article in a large South Korean newspaper recently about a college down in Jeju Island that was so strapped for cash that over 50% of their students were foreign language students from China who couldn't speak a lick of Korean. They also had multiple witnesses tell them the financial situation was so bad at the college that they did not even have $ to buy toilet paper for the public restrooms and sent out memos to students specifically telling them they were on the own for TP yet the paper was not allowed to reveal the name of the college for fear of a libel suit.

If you were a South Korean parent with college age kids, wouldn't you want to know the name of that school so you could cross it off your list of schools for your son or daughter? But becasue of the libel laws in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, this school is allowed to lie blatantly about the quality of their campus life but any journalist or blogger who would dare to call them out could get sued for thousands of dollars for libel.

So those of you defending this business owner in anyway shape or form are knee-jerk corporationists. You think that only businesses have a right to free speech?! I think those of you who are cheering on this restaurant owner for getting this blogger thrown in jail need to brush up on their American History and Thank GOD that have the freedom to talk about salty noodles or a college that is so financially incompetant they don't supply TP in their restrooms without having to worry about being sued for thousands of dollars or thrown in jail over it.

Having said that, there are simple steps that any blogger or FReeper can do to protect themselves. How to avoid jail time over a restaurant review

"..All food bloggers — even ones in the U.S., where legal thresholds for libel and product disparagement are much higher — are one caustic comment away from a lawsuit. Without the deep pockets of a large newspaper or magazine paying the free-speech attorney fees, a blogger can face bankruptcy from even the most frivolous slander or libel suit."

"The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution offers far more protection than the free speech codes of other countries, including South Korea. However, there still are lessons for American food bloggers to help avoid trouble...."

[libertarian27]

Excellent post!

Do you know if that bloggers site address info is online anywhere? I tried looking for it to no avail.

Goodness knows I hate blog pimps on FR but I’d pimp for her blog to get some revenue there and help her out, give her some extra mad-money when she gets out of jail for her salty opinion....Unbelievable!

And,,,it could happen here.....

Ingsoc: Dept. of Life, Dept. of Liberty and the Dept. of Happiness

[Tamar1973]

I tried to look too because I was really curious about how salty her commentary actually was but since the case originated in 2008, I have a feeling she was required to take it down as part of her forced apology. None of the articles even mentioned the name of her blog so I don’t know how people could even look for it in Google’s extensive cache.

[libertarian27]

I forgot to factor 2008 as the incident date - Duh-lol

She’s probably long gone in the blogger world then...and we’ll most likely never see a book from her either - for fear of a death-squad...What a World....

Hopefully, with this story, the restaurant owner will soon be out of business, if he isn’t already....maybe they both will learn a lesson:)

[darrellmaurina]

I've done some of the same Googling. An added complication is that the is probably all in Chinese and since this happened a number of years ago, the website, even if it's still up, may not have been indexed by the search engines we commonly use in the English-speaking world. Even the “wayback” sites may not have it.

The one good thing is that this horrible decision got international media attention and that's probably just about the last thing this restaurant owner wanted when he started his litigation. Sometimes what goes around comes around...