A California appeals court ruled this week that threatening posts made by readers of a website are not protected free speech, allowing a case charging the posters with hate crimes and defamation to proceed. The case raises fundamental questions about cyberbullying and the line between online speech and hate crimes. In her dissenting opinion, Judge Frances Rothschild said the appellate court ruling “alters the legal landscape to the severe... 

Deadlocked jurors in the Hal Turner hate blogger case were excused late Wednesday after deliberating two days. It’s the second mistrial in the government’s case to prosecute the New Jersey man for allegedly threatening to kill judges. Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan said a new trial was “highly likely .” A third trial was tentatively scheduled April 12 in New York federal court. Turner , of New Jersey, blogged at... 

Office Space actor Ron Livingston has filed a lawsuit against an anonymous Wikipedia editor for repeatedly altering his entry on the free encyclopedia to claim Livingston is gay. Livingston suspects the same vandal of posing as the actor in a phony Facebook profile. Neither Facebook nor Wikipedia are named in the suit. Under the Communications Decency Act , such sites enjoy immunity from most types of lawsuits stemming from the actions of their... 

A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday in the case of a notorious New Jersey hate blogger charged in June with threatening to kill judges. According to court documents, after a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit of Appeals upheld a Chicago handgun ban in June, Hal Turner blogged at turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com that the judges should be “killed .” “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges... 

If you think the sexting phenomenon is growing, you’re not imagining it. According to a new survey, almost one-third of youths admit they’ve engaged in sexting-related activities that involved either e-mailing a photo or video of themselves in the nude or being the recipient of such images. Of those who admitted to distributing suggestive images of themselves, about 61 percent report that they were pressured by someone to send the image.... 

If you think the sexting phenomenon is growing, you’re not imagining it. According to a new survey, almost one-third of youths admit they’ve engaged in sexting-related activities that involved either e-mailing a photo or video of themselves in the nude or being the recipient of such images. Of those who admitted to distributing suggestive images of themselves, about 61 …  Read More →

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have filed a notice that they do not intend to pursue an appeal in the Lori Drew cyberbullying case, thus ending the controversial and lengthy case. “We have a notice with the 9th Circuit that we are withdrawing our notice of appeal in the case,” a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles wrote in an e-mail to Threat Level. A judge threw out the government’s case against...