"Will Details Follow on ZiaSun's Stock Chat Lawsuit?
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not
necessarily thorough news accounts.
Media coverage of the dismissal of ZiaSun
Technologies' defamation lawsuit against
eight posters of stock-board messages
was short to the point of being
incomplete.
ZiaSun is a little-known company whose
shares trade on the over-the-counter
bulletin board, according to
TheStreet.com. Last June, it accused
eight Silicon Investor chatters of defaming
it. On Jan. 21, ZiaSun won a preliminary
injunction against one of the posters,
Floyd Schneider, preventing him from
making "false statements" about ZiaSun
while the case was pending, the Wall
Street Journal reported. Earlier this week,
U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman
threw out the case, saying that the
Seattle location for the suit was not the
proper venue. ZiaSun had filed the suit
there because it's the location of Silicon
Investor's headquarters. The judge didn't
buy that line of reasoning and tossed out
the case.
Judge Pecham's decision also voided her earlier injunction, against the
posters, the Journal reported. The muffling of Schneider "struck a
nerve in the freewheeling world of Internet stock chatter," the paper
wrote. "It also surprised many legal experts, who said it was unusual
for such restraints to be granted in cases where freedom of speech
was an issue."
What did ZiaSun do to inspire the vigorous criticism, alleged to
include thousands of postings? Details were sketchy. The Journal
noted that ZiaSun alleged that the defendants had wrongly accused
the company and its executives of a scheme to mislead and defraud
investors. The cyber dissing was a conspiracy to drive down its stock
price, ZiaSun countered, according to the Journal.
All the brouhaha begs the question: If the issue was serious enough
to constitute a free-speech conflict, shouldn't outlets have provided
a few more details? What exactly were the defendants posting? Is
there any truth to the allegations, however loudmouthed they might
be? What kind of business is ZiaSun in? No one bothered to tell
readers. News reports pegged Schneider's online handle as The
Truthseeker. If only the media were as enthusiastic.
thestandard.net
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