Techdirt is threatened with bogus libel lawsuit

Techdirt, one of the best tech news sites, has been sued for 15 million dollars. Mike Masnick, the founder and CEO of Techdirt, has published several articles that totally debunk a claims made by Shiva Ayyadurai. Ayyadurai claims to be the inventor of email and has theatened and sued other people and publications who have questioned his story.

Masnick is worried about the situation. These kinds of lawsuits might drive small companies to bankruptcy even if they are on the right side of the law.

"We are a truly small and independent media company. We do not have many resources. We intend to fight this baseless lawsuit because of the principles at stake, but we have no illusions about the costs. It will take a toll on us, even if we win. It will be a distraction, no matter what happens. It already has been which may well have been part of Ayyadurai's intent."

If you want to know more details of the story, check the tag "shiva ayyadurai" at Techdirt. This guy wrote an email client, but the email itself was invented earlier. Pretty clear case.

This is again one proof that the world needs Steem. There has to be a way to publish critique of scammers so that it won't be censored. Defamation laws in the USA are horrible because they can be used to silence truthful criticism. But when an article is published in a blockchain, it will be there forever. If laws don't guarantee freedom of speech, we must guarantee it with technology.