Re: BITCOINTALK STAFF QUIETLY BANS PEOPLE FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST THEM

Theymos would need to be properly served in order for him to have to show up in court. Otherwise any judgement against him would not be enforceable, and would be reversed.

You would serve the domain owner WhoisGuard, Inc.

Domain Name:BITCOIN.ORG
Registrant Name:WhoisGuard Protected
Registrant Organization:WhoisGuard, Inc.
Registrant Street: P.O. Box 0823-03411
Registrant City:Panama
Registrant State/Province:Panama
Registrant Postal Code:00000
Registrant Country:PA
Registrant Phone:+507.8365503

In some cases an In Rem action can be filed where you sue the domain name. Not sure if that is possible in this type of case. In any case service is not that difficult. If Theymos would need to be served at some point he has already provided enough info to find him via his Reddit AMA.

I am not very familiar with the laws regarding proper service as I have never had to try to avoid service like this. Regardless he would not need to personally appear in court unless he was compelled to testify, if he simply wanted to put on a defense he could have someone appear and speak on his behalf (an attorney/team of attorneys)

I referenced the wrong domain but bitcointalk.org is registered to the same company.

Mr. Marquardt would be a witness and he would be subject to appear at depositions and court hearings where he would testify.

Him potentially testifying has nothing to do with putting on a defense. There is also nothing that would prevent him from sending some other agent of the forum to testify they the agent has sufficient knowledge about the scope of the deposition. This is why the CEO of major companies do not testify when their companies are involved in lawsuits.

Also claiming section 230 protection would probably prevent the case from ever making it to trial in the event that immunity is upheld (if they have immunity then the facts of the case do not matter as they are not liable regardless of the facts)

You don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. If Mr. Marquardt is directly involved in the activities in question then he has to testify. This is not some large where you have thousands of employees doing all kinds of stuff. In order for immunity to even be considered they have to identify themselves. That means proving a registered business name, identify all the owners of the domain name, etc. You don't get that part. If they don't do that then they can't provide any defense.

It is interesting that if this thread involved some financial intuition I can imagine all the hooting and hollering how a financial institution shouldn't be allowed to do things like this ... but since it is someone running a Bitcoin site everything is different and any complaint is a "conspiracy."