Here’s a piece of news for all you trolls and haters out there; watch what you write/say or you could be on the wrong end of a very expensive lawsuit.  A woman in Florida recently won an $11.3 million defamation suit  and a lawyer in Georgia won a libel suit against a former client who’d started a blog and written some nasty things about him.  According to the article about the Georgia lawyer bloggers have been considered bulletproof because they weren’t worth suing, i.e. they didn’t have deep pockets like media companies.  Apparently that’s changing:

Legal analysts say the lawsuits are challenging a mind-set that has
long surrounded blogging: that most bloggers essentially are
"judgment-proof" because they — unlike traditional media such as
newspapers, magazines and television outlets — often are ordinary
citizens who don’t have a lot of money. Recent lawsuits by Banks and
others who say they have had their reputations harmed or their privacy
violated have been aimed not just at cash awards but also at silencing
their critics.

Later in the article the founder of the Media Bloggers Association recommends that bloggers bone up on libel law because eventually someone’s going to get sued and lose their home. 

My recommendation?  When you’re writing about someone think of it has having a conversation about one of your neighbors or co-workers.  It’s perfectly fine to have an opinion about the person and you can tell anyone you want what that opinion is, but you can’t make accusatory statements about that person unless you’re ready to back it up with proof.  For example it’s perfectly legal to say "I think Joe is an amoral jerk" but it’s a completely different thing to say "Joe’s a pervert who diddles little boys."  Statement number one is an opinion, statement number two is an accusation.  The worst that can happen with statement number one is everyone you say it to might think you’re a jerk or Joe might challenge you to a fight, but with the second statement you could end up in court.

For the record I love everyone…we’re all God’s children…blah, blah, blah…don’t sue me.