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INSIDE LEGAL BLOGS AND CHAT BOARDS INSIDE LEGAL BLOGS AND CHAT BOARDS SPONSORED BY JUDGED SPONSORED BY JUDGED
Inside Legal Blogs [By Brooke Chappell] Your buzzword for this week, readers, is “astroturfing.” You know that fake too-bright green grass called AstroTurf? You know how spontaneous, non-corporate/government sponsored movements are referred to as “grassroots?” What do you call it when there’s a formal public relations movement meant to simulate grassroots behavior?
You got it. One of the big linked-to posts this
You’ll also have noticed that a lot of the blogs
using illegal drugs. The Circuit Court ruled
week was from Thomas Nephew’s news/
listed lean towards the left, so The Rendon
overruled a former district court’s decision,
opinion site Newsrack Blog []. The article in
Group’s partial clients list for, say, the Middle
saying that the message was essentially
question was titled “’Their voice. Amplified.’ or
East is not met with hugs and puppies. The word “scary” appears with considerable frequency, as does some version of “there oughta be a law.”
political, not drug-related, and should
Why I’m banning 151.200.70,” and concerned a comment made on the blog which Nephew found suspicious, somehow, and eventually
therefore be considered as free speech. Bob Loblaw’s catch phrase: “Bong Hits 4 Bush.” That’s the news for this week. Join me next
traced back to a company which bases its But then, isn’t the most cherished principle of
week for more unfocused ramblings about
the blogosphere that it’s, for the most part, a
ultimately unverifiable information. Hey, the
Now, anyone who works in the corporate
self-policed community? If there were a law,
story has to reflect the source, doesn’t it?
world or even has a vague idea how the
wouldn’t that be infringing on free speech
corporate world works is aware that this kind
(on top of being well-nigh unenforceable)?
of thing is par for the course. You weren’t
Meanwhile, Richard Roeper of the Chicago
business on astroturf. In the figurative sense.
expecting ad campaigns to be honest, were
Sun-Times takes a moment to snark about
you? Manipulation-wise, the world of politics
the value of the work done these days by both
is several light-years behind the fashion
bloggers and traditional media.
industry. But the blogosphere, as a young and, yes, grassroots industry, has a way of
On a lighter note, legal bloggers have been
regarding itself as somehow apart from all
having fun over the last week with Ken Starr’s
that, and advertisers and lobbyists stepping
latest Supreme Court appeal. Who can blame
in on their turf (I need some new analogies)
them, when they’ve got the phrase “Bong Hits
makes bloggers very, very cross. As witness:
4 Jesus” to work with? It seems that a high
Making Light, Cybersoc.com, Deconsumption, Blanton’s and Ashton’s, Sivacracy, Watch Me Sleep, Pandagon, Deconsumption again [], Dr. Peter Rost, and Making Light again. Among many, many others.
schooler in Juneau, Alaska was suspended in 2002 for putting out a banner with those words at an Olympic torch relay off-campus. In March, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this was a violation of free speech; as the case waits to be heard or passed over,
You’ll notice that the smaller blogs seem
Gawker observes, “We love: That Kenneth
to have cottoned on first, and the larger
Starr took the case pro bono. We love: That the
ones picked the story up from there; that’s
Supreme Court, whether they decide to hear
unsurprising as, the less traffic you have on
the case or not, will have to read the words
your blog, the more likely you are examine
‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus.’”
your commentators closely. The bigger blogs have had the intervening time to track down
It only gets better when Decision of the Day
the sources of a lot of the astroturf - two
connects the case with a Second Circuit case,
companies called NetVocates and The Rendon
Guiles v. Marineau, involving a student’s an
Group.
anti-Bush t-shirt which showed the President
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