Following up on CoolDMZ’s post from yesterday I thought this site would be of interest. I especially enjoyed the section on defamation:
Can my opinion be defamatory?
No — but merely labeling a statement as your “opinion” does not make it so. Courts look at whether a reasonable reader or listener could understand the statement as asserting a statement of verifiable fact. (A verifiable fact is one capable of being proven true or false.) This is determined in light of the context of the statement. A few courts have said that statements made in the context of an Internet bulletin board or chat room are highly likely to be opinions or hyperbole, but they do look at the remark in context to see if it’s likely to be seen as a true, even if controversial, opinion (“I really hate George Lucas’ new movie”) rather than an assertion of fact dressed up as an opinion (“It’s my opinion that Trinity is the hacker who broke into the IRS database”).
There is one thing, however, I’ve learned about web logs in my short time in the game: people want to be pissed off first and entertained second. A simple review of the comments on this site will support this opinion.
The Sac Rag 