Social Media Puts Free-Speech To The Test

The World Wide Web is still very much the Wild, Wild West when it comes to setting boundaries and defining rules by which participants play. The implications are huge for companies that embrace the Web as an effective way to communicate with everyone from employees and shareholders to customers and critics.

As more companies use blogs and other new social media to interact with audiences, laws that govern cyberspace are just now being tested. The more cautious organizations are waiting to see how things pan out before jumping into the mayhem.

A few weeks ago, Frank D’Angelo, the president and CEO of Canada’s Steelback Brewery filed a $2 million libel lawsuit against Neate Sager, a popular Canadian sports blogger. D’Angelo says Sager damaged his image and reputation with disparaging comments Sager posted on his blog, “Out of Left Field,” between August 2006 and January 2007.

Sager is also a copy editor at the Ottawa Sun, so he is no stranger to laws governing journalism. Sager used especially strong language to criticize D’Angelo, especially the CEO’s interest in buying the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey franchise. And if anything can cause a serious rift between two people from Canada, it’s hockey.

D’Angelo claims Sager’s comments damaged his reputation and character and that D’Angelo had no opportunity to respond to Sager’s strongly worded claims. Of course, the very nature of a blog allows for readers to respond and Sager claims D’Angelo left no comments on the blog.

We’ll watch with interest to see what the Canadian courts say about all of this, but the episode already has a few lessons about the changing nature of communication at work.

First, bloggers might be more cautious about the language they use. The words Sager used apparently were not obscene — that’s not the point. However, they might have been libelous, charging D’Angelo with acts that Sager might be forced to prove and painting a picture of D’Angelo that might not be legally accurate. In the U.S., our First Amendment has been tested numerous times over the years and our courts have tried to strike a good balance between freedom of expression and the rights of citizens not to be unfairly represented by those who have the ability to publish or broadcast.

In the new world of social media, however, everyone is able to publish or broadcast. You think the kids who post videos on YouTube have received any special training? Or every blogger out there is educated in journalism? Think again. Never before have so many people been so capable of broadcasting their opinions to so many others.

Second, companies might be more reluctant to embrace new social media. More companies are publishing blogs, creating MySpace-type pages and using YouTube to connect with their audiences. But the Steelback case is another reminder that it’s a jungle out there. Companies have less control over the messages — and the media to distribute those messages — than ever before. Anybody out there can put up a Web page or post a video, and until the rules are tested it’s still a risky business to engage audiences in virtual conversations.

New social media hold much potential for changing the nature of corporate communications in a positive way. Until that potential is put through the necessary tests, however, it’s going to be bit messy.

Robert Holland

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