Libel on YouTube

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According to the Media Law Resource Center people attacking other people in blogs and video have sparked some 60 libel lawsuits. Today everyone who has a beef against their boss, fellow coworker or rival candidate can blog about it or create a video blog and upload it to YouTube. When does a practical joke go to far to the point where you can be suit for libel? When you secretly record it and upload it to YouTube for the world to watch over and over again.

Sites like YouTube and MySpace have content editors to censor out offensive material but their is only so much they can take out do. Mecaca moments are bond to get through because what some peope might see as a harmless joke will be racists and highly offensive to others.

The site DontDateHimGirl.com allows women to post the name and pictures of guys they have dated along with reasons not to date them. Few of the women that write on the site have any idea that they can be suit for libel for identifying their ex's and writing about them in this public forum. There are 91 profiles of men in Chicago. How can any of these men get a date after their last girlfriend profiles them as a liar and a cheater like Otis "Big O Lucky" for example? How do you distinguish pure gossip from a someone out for revenge from the truth on the Internet? You can't.

The freedom of the blogosphere and the vlogosphere for people to rant and rave about anything they want has let blogger Tim O'Reilly to draft a Blogger's Code of Conduct.

So far O'Reilly has come up with seven rules for bloggers to follow like consider eliminating anonymous comments, and take responsibility not just for your own words but for the comments you allow on your blog.

He is not only asking bloggers to be upfront and accurate about their statements but to also filter their comments. This is a practical idea but I believe that it will only be followed by the major bloggers. many bloggers pull in a large audience in the same way as Howard Stern pulls in listens "you never know what he is going to do and say next." Other throw out controversial topics and wait for their readers to argue back and forth in the form of long rants.

The Internet is a forum that can never be completely censored nor should it be. Creating a code of conduct for blogger is a good idea but a better idea is to educated the public from a young age about libel and the consequences of offensive speech. Education the public will reduce the number of Imus moments by letting people know that their are consequences whenever you blog or rant in front of a video camera and upload it into the public domain.

You no longer have to be a celebrity, or a journalists to get the public to pay attention to you all you have to do is have something interesting or provocative to say. So Citizen Journalists use you power wisely.