A federal appeals court ruled that a Tennessee hotel owner could not sue TripAdvisor for defamation for listing his hotel at the top of the America’s “dirtiest hotels” in 2011. For the three judge panel, Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote, “Placement on the ‘2011 Dirtiest Hotels’ list constitutes protected opinion because the list employs loose, hyperbolic language and its general tenor undermines any assertion by Seaton that the list communicates anything more than the opinions of TripAdvisor’s users.” (Courthouse News Service, September 3, 2013, by Kevin Koeninger)
Moore wrote that lists of best, worst and most this or that are common on the Internet and readers know that the placements are subjective rather than factual. Jeff Hermes of Harvard’s Digital Media Law Project said, “It is a victory for online review sites by letting them not only publish user comments but also draw conclusions. This helps journalists and researchers who work with user-submitted data to inform the public.” (Reuters, August 28, 2013, by Jonathan Stempel)