Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
The New York Times launches a free, geo-targeted extreme weather newsletter
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
May 8, 2013, 10:17 a.m.
LINK: www.dmlp.org  ➚   |   Posted by: Caroline O'Donovan   |   May 8, 2013

In Massachusetts, a series of incendiary comments on local newspaper websites led government officials to subpoena the paper for the identities of the commenters. The papers’ owner, GateHouse Media, has complied, but some, like Jeff Hermes at the Digital Media Law Project, remain concerned about a violation of the commenters’ right to privacy:

As Andy Sellars has written previously for the DMLP blog, the willingness of intermediaries to stand up for the rights of their users is the lynchpin and weakest link in freedom of speech online. If GateHouse did notify its users about the subpoenas, the users would at least have been afforded a chance to assert their rights. Nevertheless, GateHouse’s privacy policy does not guarantee that it will provide notice of a subpoena, leaving its users’ First Amendment rights a matter of the company’s discretion.

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
The New York Times launches a free, geo-targeted extreme weather newsletter
Readers can opt in to receive morning emails explaining the level and type of extreme weather risk in up to four different places. The newsletter is free for everyone, not just subscribers.
Gannett journalists across the U.S. will strike on June 5
Gannett has around 200 newsrooms, and editorial employees at around two dozen of those will go on strike.
With new widgets, The Philadelphia Inquirer wants to be readers’ favorite “second-screen experience”
The news org is catering to the readers who spend a lot of time on their phones during live events like sports games and election returns.