Websites That Rate Services Raise Free-Speech Questions

Commentary
Inside the First Amendment

By Gene Policinski
First Amendment Center vice president/executive director

Freedom of speech might logically seem to apply the same way whether the speech takes place on the street corner or on the Internet.

But that basic First Amendment premise is as yet unsettled in our new Web world.

An intricate set of laws and judicial opinions on free speech and defamation has evolved over several centuries, from a system that…