En route to tossing out a $2.9 million jury verdict for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the author of a hateful screed at <godhatesfags.com>, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit slipped in a goodie for bloggers at footnote 13:
[W]e believe that the First Amendment protects nonmedia speech on matters of public concern that does not contain provably false factual assertions. Any effort to justify a media/nonmedia distinction rests on unstable ground, given the difficulty of defining with precision who belongs to the "media."
Similar statements rejecting a distinction, for First Amendment purposes, between official "media" and non-media speakers were made in Flamm v. Am. Ass'n of Univ. Women, 201 F.3d 144, 149 (2d Cir. 2000), and In re IBP Confidential Bus. Documents Litig., 797 F.2d 632, 642 (8th Cir. 1986), both of which the Fourth Circuit cited.
The case is Snyder v. Phelps, No. 08-1026 (4th Cir., Sept.24, 2009).
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