• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, September 3, 2010

A recent court ruling allowing a California man to sue Craigslist over harassing posts threatens free speech online, a coalition of digital rights groups and law professors are arguing to a California appellate court.

The ruling, issued by judge Peter Busch in San Francisco County Superior Court, allowed Kern County resident "Scott P" to sue Craigslist for allegedly failing to honor a promise to remove harassing posts by users. Craigslist would normally be immune from defamation lawsuits based on user-generated posts under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but Busch ruled that Craigslist opened itself to the suit by allegedly promising to remove the posts.

The groups argue in a friend-of-the-court letter that Busch's ruling threatens to undermine the statute's "powerful protection for free speech by eliminating the broad immunity of Section 230 whenever a host has offered to help someone who claimed to be harmed by an online speaker." They are asking the California Court of Appeal to reverse Busch's decision.

They also write that Busch's ruling could force Web companies into choosing "between ignoring complaints about harmful third party content" and potentially "sacrificing their Section 230 immunity by making 'promises' of assistance." One result, they argue, is that companies would have an incentive to refrain from voluntary efforts to help people who complain about abusive posts.

"It is beyond dispute that if Craigslist had not provided any means for the plaintiff to object to content, Craigslist would be absolutely protected from liability," they write.

The letter was signed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy & Technology and Citizen Media Law Project as well as law professors Eric Goldman at Santa Clara University, Jason Schultz at UC Berkeley, David Post at Temple and David Levine at Elon University.

The case dates to February, when "Scott P." sued Craigslist for allegedly failing to honor a promise to keep ads with his name and phone number off the site. He alleged that in March of 2009 he became aware that he was being impersonated on Craigslist. He said that initially he received phone calls at home from men responding to a fake ad seeking homosexual liaisons. Later he also received phone calls from people who were responding to a fake ad to sell a vintage car. Next, "dozens" of people allegedly appeared at his home to claim furniture he had supposedly advertised as available for free.

Scott said in court papers that he complained to Craigslist and that a representative agreed to remove the posts and prevent similar ads in the future.