An orgy yes, but no Nazi theme.

This is a pretty straightforward case, but the facts are memorable, to say the least. In March of 2008, the British tabloid News of the World reported that Max Rufus Mosley, the London-born president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, had hired five prostitutes to act out a Nazi prison camp fantasy. Mosley does not dispute that he had hired the ladies to help him act out certain fantasies - the report indicates that "the court was played covertly recorded videos that showed Mosley being bound and whipped, then relaxing naked with a cup of tea." The part that Mosley denied, however was the "Nazi" aspect:

Mosley told the court he had an interest in sadomasochism going back 45 years, but said he found the idea of Nazi sex fantasies abhorrent. He said he and the women acted out a German prison scenario, with no Nazi overtones.

Really, there's not much more that can (or must) be said with respect to the facts. Judge for yourself:



So why the blog? Because Mosley sued the News of the World, for invasion of privacy, and in part for falsely claiming that there was a Nazi angle to his, ahem, hobby. And, with a speed that would spin heads in an American court, the UK tribunal completed a trial and came down with a decision awarding Mosley $120,000 in damages and legal costs of about $1.7 million.

In the U.S., aspects of this case may well have turned out differently, as Mosley's prominent position in a popular sport would have made him a public figure, held to a higher standard for a defamation cause of action. Put up against an "actual malice" standard, it would be hard to say that the tabloid had acted with reckless disregard for the truth in using "Nazi" to describe a German prison scenario in which one participant wore a Luftwaffe jacket. Seriously, how big a leap must one make to get there from an abusive "German prison" fantasy? Does that not, by itself, bring Nazism to mind? In Mosley's defense, utterly bizarre as it is, at least the role-playing prostitutes suggest that he is in prison for committing an actual crime, rather than for his ethnic origin.

A final note - although U.S. law on the subject varies widely from state to state, many jurisdictions pose harsh penalties for surreptitious audiotaping. In Florida at least, the defendants would have been subject to a fairly stiff penalty - although not stiffer than the penalty faced by Mosley for being such a naughty prisoner!

A win for Wikipedia

Literary agent Barbara Bauer has lost a defamation action against Wikipedia, the volunteer-created internet encyclopedia. Bauer "alleged that Wikimedia Foundation defamed her by publishing numerous false statements, including one that said she was 'The Dumbest of the 20 Worst" literary agents and that she had "no documented sales at all'" - pretty harsh statements, so why did the judge throw out the case? Did Wikipedia successfully raise truth as a defense, and offer proof sufficient to defeat the claim? No, Wikipedia slid out through a side door - the Communications Decency Act (CDA).


Passed by Congress in 1996, the CDA is best known as the vehicle that tried to stop internet porn by preventing the posting of materials that might reach persons under the age of eighteen. However, one provision of that act was addressed to the defense of companies hosting blogs, forums, bulletin boards, and the like. This is Section 230, which immunizes everyone who is a "provider or user of an interactive computer service" from liability for posting content from some other source. The corporate entity behind Wikipedia, it should be noted, plays virtually no editorial role in the content of the site, only rarely stepping in to delete content after people have raised complaints about it.

However, potential defamers, don't take this as a license to go out and post defamatory content on Wikipedia! Bauer's case is still alive with respect to nineteen other defendants, and I would not be at all surprised of some of those were specific Wikipedia editors - the ones who posted the complained of content. The CDA does nothing to immunize individual creators of content against such suits, and it very well should not provide such immunity. The Internet provides the broadest means of communication to have ever existed, and Wikipedia is almost universally one of the top ten cites to come up when a search engine seeks out any person, place, or thing that is the subject of an article therein. Although Wikipedia has a policy of prohibiting editors from making legal threats, this policy does not effectively prevent any lawsuits (in fact it says "If you must take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so") - but sometimes legal action is the very thing called for to maintain the civility of our society.

As to the merits of Bauer's claims, this blog will not comment - but may very well report what the court has to say, when all is said and done.


All images used in this blog are from the Wikimedia Commons.