Hollywood Trashes Americans 1st Amendment Right To Free Speech. Shuts Down Anti-Hollywood Website

BushCountry.org ^ | 05/04/03 | Jim Ownbey

[CyberAnt]

"inaccuracies of its representations"

Excuse me ... are they trying to tell us that they can stand on a stage and "represent" that our military is killing "thousands of civilians" and we don't have the right to call those "inaccuracies of its representations".

Well ... in the free enterprise of America, I'm sure there is a web host who will be more than happy to have the website. We need to stop bellyaching and just get another website. If they try to shut that down, we'll go on to another web host. Surely there is one left in America who will not be cowed by a bunch of lawyers - who obviously don't know what the Constitution says about the 1st Amendment.

THERE IS NOTHING IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT WHICH SAYS - YOU HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH IN WHAT YOU'RE SAYING.

[Arpege92]

"The www.boycott-hollywood.us website may potentially be liable, both criminally and civilly, for a variety of offences."


Notice the word "potentially"......by using this word in their accusations, it proves to me that we have done nothing wrong!

[muir_redwoods]

Total sidetrack but remember the old joke:

"Did you know that Elvis just signed with the William Morris agency? It seems he wants to stop being seen."

[friendly]

Loser Pays would solve this supression of Free Speech in a heartbeat. This is the law in the civilized democratic world. Loser pays is also just simple justice.

The action by this evil, corrupt lawfirm is technically known as a SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation.

SLAPPs use the extreme expense of litigation for a innocent party to legally defend against fale charges, in order to shut down free speech and public participation.

In Loser Pays, the crooked lawfirm and its Hollywood Left clients would have to pay all the expenses of the little website.

[Inkie]

You are 100% correct. It is dotster's prerogative as to whether it will host a particular site. If it pulls privileges in response to pressure from its public, that is no different from any country music station, say, refusing to play Dixie Chicks songs in response to pressure from its public. I'm as anti-Hollywood lefties as anyone, but this is not a First Amendment issue.

[justshe]

Thank you!

I also am "as anti-Hollywood lefties as anyone", as you said, but this willy-nilly throwing out 1st Amendment rights as an excuse, is exceedingly dishonest!

[timestax]

bump to the top

[Timesink]

*Is* this a violation of the first amendment? While the behavior of WMA has been despicable, I don't see that the federal government has passed a law inhibiting speech. When we have the moral high ground we should pound Truth and Justice, rather than squandering our point with idiotic pseudolegal blather.

The relationship between the US government and domain name registrars is somewhat complex, but there's no question that the privileges of all private domain name registrars companies are devolved directly from the National Science Foundation, which is the US government.

A smart lawyer could absolutely nail this in court as a First Amendment violation. It probably wouldn't result in anything more than Dotster losing its right to register domains, but hey, destroying the entire company is essentially the death penalty. I'd be quite happy, myself.

[Timesink]

In what manner has the federal government attempted to shut down this website.....which would make their claim re: 1st Amendment rights infringement legitimate.

Dotster's "privilege" to register domains is granted to them by the US government. If Dotster and all the other domain registrars got together and decided "Well, we're not going to register conservative sites," then conservative sites would not be able to get online at all*, and that is a direct 1st Amendment violation since they're more or less government-licensed.

* Getting very technical, you still COULD set up a conservative site, but you'd have to use an IP address, a pure number (like 127.0.0.1) that nobody could remember ... it would be vaguely analagous to the phone company telling you "Sure, you can have a phone line, but we won't tell you what the number is."

[AlexW]

Your link has a "period" at the end...
Leave out the period and the site comes up just fine.

[Timesink]

You are 100% correct. It is dotster's prerogative as to whether it will host a particular site. If it pulls privileges in response to pressure from its public, that is no different from any country music station, say, refusing to play Dixie Chicks songs in response to pressure from its public.

No it isn't. The United States Government has set up a system whereby they have authorized private companies to handle the job of registering and maintaining Internet domain names, a job that used to be handled by the US government itself. As such, Dotster has NO prerogative to arbitrarily decide to whom they will and will not provide service, because if they could, entire sections of the population could be prevented from setting up web sites. They can only refuse and/or yank service in response to specific violations of the law. A pissy threat from a lawyer does not qualify.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

But of course. They throw in "potentially" so that they can throw down any accusation they want without proving a thing. It's the same tactic as the news media that makes outrageous accusations about GW Bush in news headlines, then puts a question mark after it so that they don't have to be responsible for it later. (Some examples: "Bush is incompetent?" "Bush is going to war in Iraq just for oil?" "Bush only cares about rich people?")

[breakem]

I agree that those who protested this site are hypocrites, but "hollywood" didn't shut it down. The web site providers did. They wet their pants when they got the letter instead of giving them the finger as they should have.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I would have thought that dotster would have at least wanted to see a reasonable explanation of what laws were violated or what breach of ethics occurred.

I would agree that it's not a 1st Amendment issue any more than Jim Robinson's decision to ban a poster from FR. (Most people don't realize that the intent of the 1st Amendment is to prevent the government from stifling free speech, it's not supposed to apply to every magazine and web provider that decides that they don't want to be affiliated with certain type of material or subject.)

[DoctorMichael]

The Fascist Left marches on!

Bump.

[gcruse]

The sad thing about this First and Second amendment turmoil is that while we spend our outrage on someone shutting down a web site or the inability of Joe Blow to have antitank weapons, the federal government continues hauling legislation by the convoy load through the hole where the Tenth Amendment used to be and nobody gives a damn.

[justshe]

Dotster's "privilege" to register domains is granted to them by the US government. If Dotster and all the other domain registrars got together and decided "Well, we're not going to register conservative sites," then conservative sites would not be able to get online at all*, and that is a direct 1st Amendment violation since they're more or less government-licensed.

---

Thanks for the explanation re: the 1st Amendment connection. Makes more sense now.

[Alain2112]

The relationship between the US government and domain name registrars is somewhat complex, but there's no question that the privileges of all private domain name registrars companies are devolved directly from the National Science Foundation, which is the US government.

Formidable! Thanks for setting me straight - and with an arguement rather than a passle of indignant assertions.

[Inkie]

This would only be true if Dotster were the only game in town. Also, are you then saying that Dotster or any other domain administrator is obliged to host sites by the Klan, the Black Panthers, Al Qaeda and Jacques Chirac?

[Freedom2specul8]

I thought they got shut down because the operators of hte website gave their provider false contact info. They did this because they had received death threats! SO between the falso contact info, and the letter from william morris..I suspect both issues got them shut down.