This exemplifies what I've said in another tdaxp thread. [1] Plus, a lot of what I've written at D5GW concerning static. The first linked bulleted item, to Rip Off Report, is indeed a negative review left on Rip Off Report; but the owner of the web site, Ed Magedson, may himself be a scam artist, or not, and a fugitive from the law, or not. [2] I.e., he either creates false negative reports and then solicits money from the companies he's attacking to “investigate” the negative reports and clear the company's name, or others leave reports and he uses those to solicit money from companies, or perhaps he's legit and some other scam artist has made up facts about his fugitive status and Rip Off Reports operation. Who knows? The Google search [3] of his name excludes one item from their results because it is subject to a US Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint [4], which may mean that Ed Magedson also plays hardball, of one sort or another. But get this: the negative review of JLK on Rip Off Report is linked here on tdaxp — its validity, etc., matters far less than the fact that a conglomerate skew is taking hold of the Google search — but in fact, Ed Magedson reports the following on Rip Off Report:

“JL Kirk – Rip-off Report Investigation: 3 of 5 Reports were filed by the same ex-employee. Two remaining report authors were never clients. JL Kirk commitment to clients to help them achieve the career position of their choice, Committed to Rip-off Report Corporate Advocacy Program Nashville Tennessee….

“Rip-off Report was contacted by JL Kirk; we investigated this company recently and discovered the following:

“Five reports were listed on Rip-off Report. It is our opinion the five reports filed are bogus and untrue. Evidence clearly shows Rip-off Report, three of the five postings were by the same person, an ex-employee who only worked there for three days, using the same computer, whose sole intent was to hurt the company. The two remaining report authors were never clients

“Over the last 7 years, Rip-off Report has talked with many others in similar types of business as Kirk's and found speaking with Kirk one of the best learning experiences to say the least Kirk has been in the Career Management business for over 10 years and as part of that long time experience he has worked with the best and the worst in the industry. That being said, Kirk certainly knows what NOT to do and how to assist those successfully, properly guiding them to advance to their next career position. ” [5]

But of course, none of this matters, not whatsoever. What matters is that a swarm is happening that will defend the integrity of the Blogosphere, such as it is, by creating conditions in which no company may ever defend itself in court against smear campaigns, for fear of suffering the “Kirking” effect.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/04/12/j-l-kirk-associates-not-a-better-business.html

[2] http://www.goodbusinessbureau.com/

[3] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Ed+Magedson%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

[4] http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=463

[5] http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff160105.htm

I wonder if the garish offense is not JLK's business practices in general but only the effrontery of having threatened a lawsuit to get one post deleted from a blog. In this case, as with most dealing with such “offense”, the offense may be subjective or perceived as a personal attack by those who were not the target of those practices. E.g., the bloggers who have picked up the meme, as Dan has here, know very little about the actual business practices of JLKirk (as few linking to RipOffReport.com know anything about the RipOffReport followup to the complaints against JLKirk) — but JLKirk's business practices — plural — are not the issue. The issue is suing a blogger to get one post (not every post on the blog) removed; and that post's validity doesn't matter to the host of bloggers, btw. The slippery-slopers may fear that a success by JLKirk's lawsuit would threaten their own blogs and sense of “free speech”.

This, btw, ties in with something else Dan wrote recently on a related topic [1] –

“Curtis,

Your words are wise. Outrage is typically a function of perceived group-powerlessness, and I think that (as with Sunni Arabs [3] ) this perception is accurate among American blacks who are descended from slaves. The cause of which, in my opinion, has a lot more to do with Jim Crow than slavery.”

Not only might this describe Coble's sense of outrage at what she perceived to be a hostile interview; but more to the point, it may explain the blogger response to the threatened lawsuit. To the degree that many bloggers may feel generally powerless in their lives — and, perhaps, also before the law of the land as adjudicated within the courts — such a lawsuit as threatened by JLK creates a backlash and outrage.

This is curious, since, if true, then these same bloggers must have a sense of “power” in their ability to write whatever they please — and virtually no other power — but are entirely unwilling to consider the “power” that Coble's post might have in affecting JLK's business negatively: I.e., either

1) their claim that she should be able to write whatever she pleases — an **absolute freedom** of speech — would necessitate the entire scope of libel, slander, perjury, etc., being removed from the judicial lexicon, at least as they might apply to bloggers and blogging, if bloggers admit that the power of free speech is indeed power, a power they would protect at all costs, which is also a power to hurt businesses at whim. Such an annulment of protections from libelous, slanderous, and perjuring speech when it occurs in blog posts would be the goal of these bloggers who have no sense of power without such an annulment — but fear their power is really illusory without such guarantees and protections.

2) their claim that “kirking” is the inevitable result of such threatened lawsuits, which is far worse that the damage that a single blog post would cause to a company's reputation, must mean that the power of free speech is not really all that powerful. Coble's one post, that one utilization of free speech, has not much power at all in such a formulation; no, but 200-300 blog posts attacking JLKirk **is** power. I.e., speech is indeed nearly worthless in and of itself; but a cacophony of “noise” is the real power — or, really, giving the impression that large numbers of people think alike is the true power, not the speech itself. This formulation, btw, would signal the true terror in the host of bloggers: even their much-beloved speech does not give them a sense of power; no, they only feel power as a collective “voice” (really, as a collective with personal loyalties [2] ensuring the group response.

Thus, when you say,

“And libel suits with an element of truth will get blogs defending them in equal measure.”

I think that you are probably wrong. An “element” of truth will not be enough. No, only the garishly libelous post would create somewhat equal, or nearly equal, sets of defenders, at the least, by giving the garish truth of the lawsuit. Given the different levels of writing ability of bloggers, a very clever writer — say, someone who always inserts “I feel that” before libelous statements, and who can use innuendo to build up the defamatory characterization in a very clever manner — will be at an advantage in rousing the rabble to her or his defense; consider:

“I feel that Ms. Lewinsky and I did not have sex.” (Is this actionable, given the different ways of interpreting “sex”?)

“I feel that those lacrosse players are hooligans.” (Can his feeling be proven or disproved? Is this actionable?)

Etc.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/04/09/the-notre-dame-women-s-fighting-irish-basketball-team-is-com.html

[2] http://www.fifthgeneration.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2007/03/loyalty_vs_fidelity.php

So what is “effrontery” to you is “barratry” to me.

We are soon to be arguing in circles. I mean, I find it extremely peculiar that so many of the blog posts I have read addressing this controversy take Coble's description of JLK as gospel for calling JLK a scam — but here we have the same bloggers saying that her description is not libelous!! Which is it? Can they believe the veracity of Coble's innuendo, implication, etc., for describing JLK's practices while also saying that her post is merely her opinion and not defamatory speech intended to cause JLK financial harm?

“intended to cause JLK financial harm”

I want to question you on this clause, apart from the rest.

Are you saying that all negative reviews intend to cause financial harm, but that Coble is wrong because she used innuendo and implication?

I'm pretty sure every other job placement agency in Tennessee is hoping JL Kirk Associates directs King & Ballow to do exactly that

“For them to not even discuss that fee structure until they had battered us emotionally for half an hour is what I would consider to be unethical.”

She didn't use, “feel” but gave her considerations, thoughts, her thinking, while calling them unethical and saying their business practices are unethical. 30 minutes, when they were told that it wouldn't be until the second interview until the fee structure was discussed? Will any reasonable person call a 30-minute delay reasonably unethical? How about the hyper-emotional battering? Ah, but a little after this:

“In the meantime, I would discourage anyone who stumbles across this entry from even going through the JL Kirk & Associates “interview process”.”

Is this her opinion only, or is she actually trying to sabotage JLK's business by telling people not to go? Just friendly advice? I mean, did she not think her description of her interview process, the whole ordeal, was enough to discourage people from going; or did she add this part to tell people to stay away?

The fact of the matter is, this last part is not part of the review. Nope. It is telling people how they should respond to the supposed “review”. Of course, critics tell people to stay away from books and movies, too. But here she is putting the interview process into quotes: another way of imply there is no real interview, but only a scam underway.

Now you and I may have different impressions of what Coble's intent was; that's only natural. That's also why, in situations like this, trial before an impartial judge is necessary, with each party able to argue the case and give evidence — so that the full evidence can be considered, rather than piecemeal RipOffReport pages, etc., only. Evidence like this:

” The College Scam (92%)

What is it with the number “92%”? I've decided over the last month that whenever anyone quotes me a placement rate of “ninety-two percent” that they're most likely being both untruthful and running a scam……..

Now of course I was already wary of “92%”, seeing as that was the number the J L Kirk lady gave us. I think from now on I'm going to call “92%” the Carny Number. It's close enough to one hundred to seem like success, but unrounded enough to look factual.” [1]

— There it is. In a post specifically written to address the topic of scams, she's made the connection between JLKirk and scams, quite specifically and intentionally, and posted that connection to her blog in advertisement. It is a post written on 14 March 2007. April 11 2007, she received the letter from the lawyers. The Blogosphere considers that letter to be intimidation from a bully, and I've mentioned also that such letters may operate in a 4GW manner; but in fact Tennessee requires such a letter for any libel suit. [2] So even an honest and concerned attempt to defend oneself in court against libel in Tennessee would require such an “intimidating” letter, which means it adds fuel to the fire for a Blogosphere that does not want to consider all the facts and in fact won't consider all the facts. Thus, a judge, before whom sits two very interested and directly affected parties sure to collect as much evidence as possible, is best in a situation where the line may be fuzzy in places.

[1] http://mycropht.blogspot.com/2007/03/college-scam-92.html

[2] http://volokh.com/posts/1170824792.shtml