Black Ice,
I have a couple of quibbles with your recent posting regarding Porter Davis and the TSE.
>>>Regarding Porter Davis, his situation with the TSE isn't much different from anyone else, anywhere. If you diss the company you work for, you're likely to get fired. If your slander is serious enough, you could get sued by your company.
I'm pretty sure that Mr. Davis is not an employee of the TSE. I thought that he was a Governor of the options exchange, but I could be wrong. As a trader, Mr. Davis certainly is a CUSTOMER of the TSE.
>>>If you're an athlete and you verbally abuse the league, referee, umpire or official through the media, you'll get fined or even suspended. Mr. Davis made some disrespectful remarks against the TSE and the same line of consequences occurred. I'm certain if someone made tasteless remarks about SI in a public forum, they'd remove your account and consider further action.
1) I don't think that any of Mr. Davis' remarks could be characterized as tatsteless. Scathing, Sarcastic, or Satirical would be more accurate.
2) The sports analogy is a bad analogy. First, in the real world, the "referee" can't put you in the "penalty box" without due process. Second, Mr. Davis has the right to free speech.
3) FWIW, several major newspapers have repeated some of Mr. Davis' statements (such as "ValuJet of stock exchanges"), so they do not seem to be too worried that they are repeating slanderous statements.
4) I think that it is not unreasonable to assume that the TSE is using "Litigation Chill" as a tactic to silence a knowlegable critict. There has been a lot of criticism of the TSE lately, and they are doing damage control. It has worked in this case, Mr. Porter has stopped posting to SI (probably on the advice of his lawer). It may have backfired though, it got a lot of bad press for the TSE.
Regards,
John Sladek |
