Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:37 pm

Here's a bit of extra advice for Abd or anyone else seeking to sue the WMF. It doesn't relate to libel or other abuses, but it does show a weakness in the Foundation's Section 230 "armor".
On January 8, 2017, the Senate subcommittee released its final report, titled “Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking.” It pushed the theory that Lacey, Larkin, Ferrer, and their employees had invalidated their liability protections under Section 230: Rather than removing illegal and obscene content, the Senate said, Backpage had helped develop it, using clever moderation practices to “sanitize the content” and conceal it from the eyes of the law—all in the name of earning a few extra dollars. This, the subcommittee implied, put Backpage in the position of a content creator, not a mere content host.

It is not difficult to prove that WMF employees and their "friends" have been heeling certain content. I've got examples of it happening. (All you need to say is "Sarah Stierch" and "Steven Walling" to kick it off.)

That might be the secret to a successful civil action, of any kind, against the WMF. Show them "creating content" and placing themselves in violation of Section 230.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the chilling effect would be particularly damaging to sites like Wikipedia, which “don’t have the massive budgets to defend themselves that Facebook and Twitter do.”

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Graaf Statler » Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:45 pm

In the years before their arrest, Lacey and Larkin had successfully beat back charges like these in court. They took refuge not only in the First Amendment but also in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Congress’ great gift to the internet. Passed in 1996, Section 230 largely immunized online platforms from liability for the user-­generated content they hosted. They were free to police offending material as they saw fit, without undue fear of prosecution by state or local authorities—as long as they didn’t create it themselves. America’s tech behemoths, from Twitter to Facebook, have often invoked Section 230 in court. The internet we have today wouldn’t exist without it. After all, you can’t build or sustain a giant network if you’re getting sued every time a user says or does something objectionable.

Thanks for posting this interesting topics, and I think it is here about. The internet has grown up and it is clear the governments want there grip on the internet and article 230 doesn't fit them anymore in this form. They simple don't want the piracy anymore, they want law and order on the internet, indeed the changing zeitgeist

It is very interesting for whole Silicon Valley what the judge is now going to say in the Lomax case, it is a test if a internet firm can do what they want nowadays. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if they trough WMF under the bus as a test. Unimportant, no economic value, a house filled up with idiots, nothing lost.
Sink it down in the sea, who cares.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:57 pm

Graaf Statler wrote:The internet has grown up and it is clear the governments want there grip on the internet and article 230 doesn't fit them anymore in this form. They simple don't want the piracy anymore, they want law and order on the internet, indeed the changing zeitgeist

I've been saying for a looong time that the Internet has escaped the regulation and taxation burdens placed on other telecommunications systems in the US, thanks to special Congressional action to "keep the innovation going". Usually at the behest of now-giant corporations like Google and Facebook. This state can't last forever. The public Internet was opened in 1994 so it's now 25 years old, and starting to dominate American politics and commerce. (I think it's also only a matter of time before Amazon is litigated by the Feds as a "trust".)

Sooner or later, the political pressure to regulate websites will overwhelm the Net-Libertarian "don't tread on me" attitude. And that backstabby little libertarian twat Jimbo will eventually become a historical footnote.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Abd » Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:25 am

Thanks, everyone. I'm putting relevant case documents, except for some procedural entries that matter little, on the blog, at Lomax v. WMF. The only truly active document now is the Amended Complaint, which is, shall we say, meatier and jucier, if much longer.

If I'm correct, the Amended Complaint moots the pending Motion to Dismiss. Whether or not the WMF will file another Motion to Dismiss, I surely don't know. If I have interpreted the law and procedure correctly, that will fail, I designed the complaint to pass muster based on precedent in Noonan v. Staples, especially the second case, and the requirements of Massachusetts law. (Essentially, I needed to allege what I already suspected, with much more specificity.) So they may decide to not waste the time preparing another motion and instead Answer, and then discovery will begin.

I will need to start moving on serving the other Defendants. As I understand the rules, I will have 120 days to effect service, or they may be dismissed as defendants without prejudice. What that means is another $400 to file a new case. With a lot of evidence having been obtained in this one, I assume.

Once I know that this has survived dismissal, I intend to start fundraising. Certain aspects of discovery process can be expensive, and IANAL and do respect lawyers and what they do.

I'm learning a lot.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Abd » Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:42 am

The Section 230 defense does not apply here, because I am suing the WMF for defamation based on their publication, not the publication of users. They will claim a defense based on truth, which is a standard defense against a defamation claim. They will assert that they published that I was banned, and that this was true and therefore protected speech. But Massachusetts law does provide for veracity as a defense, but then gives an exception, if the publication was with malice.

In addition, the literal words were true, but what they implied in context (given their policy as widely understood) was not true, i.e, that I had seriously violated the terms of service and was causing or threatening harm to users or the Foundation. So there are two layers to this prosecutorial approach, and both will require a finding of fact and therefore a trial.

In the second Noonan case, a mere reason to suspect malice, because Noonan had cost Staples a lot of money by suing them, was enough to require a trial.

The first Noonan case went to trial, eventually, on the malice issue and the jury rejected the malice claim.

However, some executives at Staples had mouthed off about Noonan, he filed a second action, and even though the court concluded, in ruling on a motion for summary judgment, that what the executives had stated was true (factoring for colloquial expression that was actually foolish, inflammatory, but considered adequately true), but because the malice claim again required a trial, so the motion for summary judgment was rejected. Noonan filed some evidence, I have not seen it, but two days later moved to close the case.

Why? He'd already gone so far! Why give up? Well, I don't think he gave up. I think they privately settled. Noonan really had been screwed over by what Staples had done, losing a fortune (maybe a million dollars) worth of stock options for offenses that were relatively minor. Instead of fighting this thing out, I suspect that Staples offered him what it would cost them in legal fees to fight, which could be a good chunk of a million dollars.

Sensible, if that happened, and they could possibly have done this with the first case and avoided the whole mess.

There are many lessons here.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Graaf Statler » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:44 pm

Intersting.

Key language here is that by filing the pleading, he's certifying that "to the best of [his] knowledge, inquiry, and belief", and that the legal contentions need not lie entirely within existing law; provided you make a nonfrivolous argument for changing the case law, you can still make that legal contention

https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... 50#p239564

In Holland the Lawyer makes this selection because of his oath.

Oath as an attorney.

Ik zweer (beloof) getrouwheid aan de koning, gehoorzaamheid aan de grondwet, eerbied voor de rechterlijke autoriteiten, en dat ik geen zaak zal aanraden of verdedigen, die ik in gemoede niet gelove rechtvaardig te zijn.'

Just fuck off with your craziness, Vig.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Abd » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:27 pm

Graaf Statler wrote:Intersting.

Key language here is that by filing the pleading, he's certifying that "to the best of [his] knowledge, inquiry, and belief", and that the legal contentions need not lie entirely within existing law; provided you make a nonfrivolous argument for changing the case law, you can still make that legal contention

https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... 50#p239564

In Holland the Lawyer makes this selection because of his oath.

Oath as an attorney.


Yes, this is factual. It is the same here, but I have seen lawyer pleadings that were pushing the limits, if not beyond them, and nothing was done. Legal process is human process and judges here are more interested in seeing that what goes to a jury is fairly filtered for admissibility. False claims in an early pleading are simply disregarded. If presented at trial, and if they are demonstrably false, they will injure that party's case. Juries dislike liars, and will then discount everything else the person says.

Now, this comment by Mendaliv is actually interesting. The guy writes like a real lawyer, very few would be able to do that casually except a real lawyer, or at least someone very knowledgeable. I am more knowledgeable than the average bear, but I am not a lawyer and reading law, which I did when necessary, used to give me migraine headaches. But I used to love reading high court decisions, because it can be some of the best thinking in our society. Then came Bush v. Gore. Ah, well, it was great while it lasted.

So I looked at his Wikipedia account. As suspected, either an actual lawyer or a law student. "This person attended or attends Notre Dame Law School."

Great quotes on his user page:
Cunningham's Law: The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer.

He also quotes Jimbo on fringe. I had often relied on that statement. The anti-fringe faction grossly deviated from that ideal.

He gives the kind of commentary I would expect from a lawyer. I will hypothes.is it. Great stuff. Far and above anything else so far.
detailed commentary

I would appreciate it if someone would link to this, here, or to the commentary page, on Wikipediocracy.

Heh! I will come back with a brief summary, below.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Abd » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:28 pm

hpothes.is annotation

A brief summary: Mendaliv is showing the commentary of a real lawyer, reasonably disinterested. He does not address the specifics of why the Amended Complaint might be defective and fail to state a claim. But he understands thoroughly how I thought before filing, based only on my understanding of common law and then, a little of procedure, such as filing Diversity in Massachusetts. Most of what I know I have learned from discussions, and then researching what various people, often dismissive, wrote. I followed up on everything I saw. I also read general educational pages on defamation law, specific to Massachusetts, that's how I found Noonan v. Staples.

From that case, I realized that to strengthen the case, I needed to actually allege what I had suspected, malice. My habit was "Never ascribe to malice what could be simple incompetence." That is not a legal principle to follow in a defamation case. Here, it would be "always allege malice if you have any reason to suspect it."

And then, toward the end of working on the draft complaint, I came across a defamation case that alleged civil conspiracy. OMG! that is exactly what I had evidence for. And so it got tossed in.

And then, last minute, almost literally, the implied contract claim. For that, I asked $1000 in damages, since this was clearly under the TOU. Will they try to get that tossed out, claiming wrong venue? Maybe. They might try anything. For $1000, it's probably not worth the time of a lawyer to argue it.

On WPO, Rhindle wrote, about Noonan v. Staples: "I wonder Abd has sufficiently shepardized that case."
"Shepardized that case"? That was vaguely familiar, later, I figured out that I had, doing legal research before, used Shepard at a law library.

I googled it and found that this was now on-line, with Lexis-Nexis, paywalled. But that Google Scholar could serve about as well, maybe better. So I did use it. I found plenty of citations, none indicating anything showing later revision of the principles. Was that complete? No, but I'll find out more easily by seeing how the professionals, Jones Day, respond. Why should I work hard to work out every detail, when they will kindly point them out at no cost to me?

There could be a pro se advantage.

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by ericbarbour » Fri Jun 28, 2019 7:34 am

Abd wrote:On WPO, Rhindle wrote, about Noonan v. Staples: "I wonder Abd has sufficiently shepardized that case."
"Shepardized that case"? That was vaguely familiar, later, I figured out that I had, doing legal research before, used Shepard at a law library.

I googled it and found that this was now on-line, with Lexis-Nexis, paywalled. But that Google Scholar could serve about as well, maybe better. So I did use it. I found plenty of citations, none indicating anything showing later revision of the principles. Was that complete? No, but I'll find out more easily by seeing how the professionals, Jones Day, respond. Why should I work hard to work out every detail, when they will kindly point them out at no cost to me?

As I probably told you before: is there a public law library near you? If so, they will have WestLaw, Lexis/Nexis or some other online research tool available thru their on-site PCs. They are paying a LOT of money every month for that access. Go in and make a pest of yourself. Ask the librarian for help--law librarians are usually sitting around bored. Use their database access for research into all relevant Massachusetts case law and decisions. There's got to be something you can use, and frequently it can't be Googled because it's too old or for other reasons.

Too back you're not doing this in California. The WMF is here and would find it easier to fight you, but CA state law requires every county to offer a free law library to the public without restrictions. (And be glad you're not in Georgia, where the state is attempting to claim that state laws are subject to commercial copyright, therefore demanding $$ from anyone who wants to read or use them...)

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Re: Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

Post by Abd » Sat Jun 29, 2019 9:32 pm

ericbarbour wrote:As I probably told you before: is there a public law library near you? If so, they will have WestLaw, Lexis/Nexis or some other online research tool available thru their on-site PCs. They are paying a LOT of money every month for that access. Go in and make a pest of yourself. Ask the librarian for help--law librarians are usually sitting around bored. Use their database access for research into all relevant Massachusetts case law and decisions. There's got to be something you can use, and frequently it can't be Googled because it's too old or for other reasons.[/qote]

Too back you're not doing this in California. The WMF is here and would find it easier to fight you, but CA state law requires every county to offer a free law library to the public without restrictions. (And be glad you're not in Georgia, where the state is attempting to claim that state laws are subject to commercial copyright, therefore demanding $$ from anyone who wants to read or use them...)

https://www.mass.gov/locations/hampshire-law-library is a short walk from my apartment. Yes, they have great stuff. Probably a good idea to get my butt on down the street. Apparently, also, I can get a law library card and then access resources through the Forbes Library, possibly from home.

There will be a Motion to Dismiss filed Monday, I expect. I will have two weeks to respond.

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