Bloggers are part of free press

I occasionally worry that I might be sued for statements on this blog, such as saying that psychologist Ken Perlmutter is the Jerry Sandusky of the family court. I have First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, of the press; and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. There has been some legal ambiguity about whether a blogger has the same free press rights as a newspaper, but the federal appeals just ruled that he does.

California law also makes it difficult to shut down a blog with a frivolous lawsuit, as I have noted in Truth is a defense.

You can still be censored by sites like Facebook:

Kang had a different point of view. Writing on Facebook, she declared, “I was a little peeved because while I feel like it’s ok to love and accept your body, I think that we’re normalizing obesity in our society.”

Ridiculously, after a user complained, Kang was temporarily booted from Facebook and her post was removed as “hate speech.” Kang told Yahoo! Shine Monday, “I felt like I’d been sent to the principal’s office and been expelled. We’ve become so sensitive to this weight issue that people who speak out against it are vilified. It’s so backwards to me.”

Yes, it is backwards.