Craig's List Lawsuit: Free Speech vs Social Goals

NPR reported this morning that several months ago a suit was filed against Craig's List over apartment listings that violate the Fair Housing Act non-discrimination laws. Should operators of sites be held to the same standards that newspapers are? If this succeeds, what does that mean for negative comments people make about companies or products?

The gist of the NPR story was that listings for renting apartments on Craig's List often include criteria such as they will or won't rent to gays, minorities, Christians, etc. etc. etc. Years ago, newspapers were forced to screen their classifieds and reject ads like this. So far courts have held that the Internet is different than a newspaper, and is not bound by the same legal requirements. But as classified ads increasingly move out of newspapers and online, should this change? And if it changes for Craig's List, how will it affect all the Blogger.com, Typepad, etc. Will they be responsible for editing and removing offensive, illegal, etc. information?

The extension for word of mouth marketing is that these services might have to monitor discussions of companies/brands/products for accuracy. If a company didn't like a blog post or a review, they could claim inaccuracy and sue or threaten to sue. Most blog and review sites, being small companies, would probably take the posts down rather than incur the cost of the suit. The word of mouth world would be a much poorer place.

But being a Child of the '60's, I believe these laws serve a laudable social goal of creating a truly free and equal society. Beyond that, as a country, we decided long ago that property owners don't have the right to discriminate whom they sell or rent to based on their personal biases. On the other hand, living in New England and going to my town's Town Meeting every year, there is a great tradition of each individual having the right to stand up in public and state his position. The Internet has expanded that to the world and it would be a shame to lose it.

Censorship to serve the greater good vs free speech is a paradox as old as the country. It looks like it will continue on the Internet.

What do you think? A quick search on Sphere and Technorati didn't turn up much discussion of this yet....here are a couple of other posts:

TechnologyTalk

Technology and Marketing Law

I'm off on a week's vacation and celebrating the big 5-0 birthday. Some of my colleagues will be posting. I'll be back the week of 7/17 -- at which time I will be in my second half-century!