I slurged twice while I was reading this.
I have two thoughts:
1) Yay.
2) Duh.
You can now call Labs a Big Gay with impunity.
Note that the free pass doesn't apply to the actual person who says the thing. Were I to in fact call Labs a Big Gay, you'd get off scot free, but I would still have to face the consequences.
And I don't think you want to face the consequences. Just ask Spencer.
What if someone else called Labs a Big Gay, and you linked to it without providing any context? Would that be as bad in the eyes of the law as actually calling Labs a Big Gay?
Or what if you linked to it and just said "Heh"?
What about veiled innuendo, such as if one were to hypothetically claim that a certain well-known blogger... may in fact be what the French call "Le Big Gay"?
[edited - Becks]
I believe the expression is "Le Gran Gay."
Oops, that's too direct. replace "claim" with "suggest". And "Le Big Gay" with "Le Gai Énorme".
Cleanup in aisle seven.
Isn't truth accepted as a defense against accusations of slander?
That's so gay that the Becks comes up with Big Gay as an example of potentially actionable slanderificosity.
13 - I know, I know. I almost told people to have a go at Wolfon's mom but then decided this was the lesser of two insulting evils.
Cool, Becks gets a definite article now.
Wait, that was actually an identifying detail? Sorry.
But you know it still... it is still so gay that you tease Labs for his size.
So w-lfs-n's mom is a Big Gay too?
I know this is probably too early in the thread for this, but the law involved in this case appears to apply to more than defamation. If a commenter threatened someone and posted identifying information about them, for example, the blogger would be immune from any kind of civil or criminal action, even if she left the comment up.
Too bad the FREE LEGAL ADVICE UBERLAWYER sites B's troll hero checked out hadn't noted the earlier finding that this court affirmed.
18.---You mean like those people who go around posting people's home addresses in 300+ comment threads? I think it's not an unreasonable standard to have to prove intent to disseminate the information.
Should the responsible blogger , say, write "haha, thats great, lol, lets fnck him up" directly afterwards in the thread, that's one thing. But I don't think Atrios should be held liable if some random person posts bad stuff near the end of one of his site's completely illegible comment threads.