'Right to Yelp': New laws would protect reviewers from lawsuits

PPP Board Member Sophia Cope and PPP Policy Director Evan Mascagni were recently quoted in a front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle on SLAPPs.

“There are bullies out there who seek to silence individuals for speaking out on matters of public interest,” said Evan Mascagni, policy director at the Public Participation Project, a free-speech nonprofit. “These laws aim to combat that and get these lawsuits dismissed relatively quickly and painlessly.”

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San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes online free speech, said it receives queries at least weekly from consumers being sued over online reviews, usually on Yelp and sometimes on Glassdoor, a site where employees rate their workplaces, said staff attorney Sophia Cope. The EFF does not take individual cases, however.

“We need a federal law that applies in all states,” Cope said.

You can read the full article here.