|
*Off Topic*
Today's WSJ's "Heard on the Net" column.
___
June 12, 1998
Toronto Exchange Takes Aim
At Message Board Participant
By JASON ANDERS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
There's never a shortage of mudslinging on on-line message boards. But
the Toronto Stock Exchange says it has had enough of one of its most
vocal on-line critics. It has threatened him with a lawsuit -- and
warned the Web site he frequents that it considers his posts libelous.
Porter Davis, an options trader in Toronto, hasn't posted any more
messages on the Silicon Investor site (www.techstocks.com) since
receiving a letter on June 2 from attorneys for the exchange ordering
him to stop publishing "defamatory material" about the exchange, and its
management.
"They win. I quit. Sorry folks. ... I can't jeopardize my family's
future in a fight with the TSE," Mr. Davis wrote in his last post.
Since then, Mr. Davis, an 18-year veteran of options trading and
managing partner of Professional Trading Partners in Toronto, has become
something of a superhero on Silicon Investor. In recent days, hundreds
of messages have been posted bashing the Toronto Stock Exchange and
accusing it of bullying Mr. Davis. Many message board participants have
renewed their criticism of the exchange, and have openly challenged the
exchange to sue them. Some have talked of setting up a legal defense
fund for Mr. Davis.
Want to receive an e-mail alert when Heard on the Net columns are
published? See details on how to subscribe.
Mr. Davis, a floor trader, has been a vocal critic of the exchange and
its management for more than a year, posting frequently in the "Canadian
Options" message board on Silicon Investor. He strongly opposed the
exchange's plan to automate options trading. Mr. Davis has called the
exchange the "Valu-Jet of stock exchanges," and compared it to the
Titanic. He also has been critical of exchange President Rowland
Fleming, and suggested he should be fired.
It's not clear which of Mr. Davis's posts offends the exchange. An
exchange spokeswoman says the exchange can't point out specific messages
that prompted the letter because that would "be propagating the
defamations further [and] continuing the process." The dispute between
the exchange and Mr. Davis was first reported in the Financial Post.
"This is the first time in the 150-year history of the exchange that we
have considered such action," Pam Agnew, an exchange spokeswoman, says
of the letter sent to Mr. Davis. "The attacks of over a year in duration
-- on almost a daily basis -- which prompted action by the exchange were
considered libelous, threatening and defamatory, and beyond the limits
of acceptable behavior and legal bounds."
Mr. Davis declines to comment, citing advice of his attorney.
The exchange's attorneys also sent a letter to Silicon Investor warning
that it considered the posts defamatory and libelous. But a spokeswoman
for Silicon Investor said the letter didn't make reference to any
particular posts, and didn't request any particular action. "We wrote
back asking them to provide us with specific violations. ... What they
sent us was too general," says Jill McKinney, Silicon Investor's
Webmaster.
Ms. McKinney says Silicon Investor gets a lot of complaints from
companies and people who have been criticized on its boards, but says
this is the first time a stock exchange has ever complained. She says
Silicon Investor does remove posts that violate its terms of use --
which prohibit the posting of libelous material -- but says it wasn't
immediately clear that Mr. Davis had done that.
Ms. McKinney says Silicon Investor tries to protect its users' freedom
of speech, and only removes posts "when absolutely necessary." She says
the site hasn't removed any of Mr. Davis's posts.
Recent laws protecting on-line sites could make it difficult to win a
libel case against Silicon Investor, says Floyd Abrams, a partner in the
New York law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel.
"It's clear that an on-line service is immune from libel suits for what
it carries," says Mr. Abrams. Those services are protected by the
Communications Decency Act of 1996, he says. In April, America Online
used that law to successfully defend a defamation lawsuit brought by
White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal and his wife, Jacqueline, over a
report by on-line gossip columnist Matt Drudge published on that
service.
Before the communications act, conflicting court rulings made it unclear
how responsible, if at all, on-line services were for content posted by
their users. In one prominent case, Prodigy was judged responsible for
user posts because it admitted that it screened messages for profanity
and other questionable content, thereby making it more than just a
conduit.
But aside from the liability, Mr. Abrams says the exchange would first
have to establish that Canada has jurisdiction over Silicon Investor by
showing it does considerable business in Canada. The Web site, which has
been based in Overland Park, Kan., but is moving to Seattle, was
recently acquired by Go2Net.
"It seems to me [Silicon Investor] has a considerable defense against a
Canadian court having jurisdiction over them," Mr. Abrams says.
Libel suits are easier to win in Canada than in the U.S., Mr. Abrams
says, because Canadians don't have the same freedom of speech
protections afforded to Americans by the First Amendment. "A plaintiff
in the U.S. has to prove what was said about him was false. In Canada,
as in England, the [defendant] has to prove what he said was true," he
says.
Despite the recent letter, the exchange doesn't want to stop Mr. Davis
from posting "constructive" messages in the future, says Ms. Agnew. In
fact, she says, Mr. Davis has done more than anyone to educate people
about derivatives products, and she hopes that continues.
"We applaud him," she says. "He's one of the greatest assets the
industry has. Our only concern is where things are defamatory or
libelous."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write Jason Anders at: jason.anders@news.wsj.com
Return to top of page | Format for printing
Copyright c 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
|
