Cleveland-Cliffs, headquartered in downtown Cleveland, has a long history dating back to iron mining in the mid-19th century. In 2020, the company acquired ArcelorMittal's U.S. operations, including the Cleveland plant, making it the largest steel sheet manufacturer in North America. The acquisition was part of an overhaul of Cliffs' focus and finances under the leadership of Lourenço Goncalves, who became CEO a decade ago. At the urging of the steelworkers' union, Cliffs also passed on a bid for U.S. Steel, which had accepted a $14 billion takeover offer from Nippon Steel Corporation.
Given these changes, it's not surprising that Cliffs and its CEO would want to know who is posting anonymous, derogatory comments about them on Yahoo message boards.
Fortunately, late last month, the company's latest effort to unmask those critics was decisively shot down by Cuyahoga District Court Judge Deborah Turner, who ruled that anonymous critics are protected by the First Amendment. She also determined that the critics were primarily expressing their own opinions. Cliffs had sued to force Yahoo to unmask the contributors.
Turner wrote that the company's presentation “not only disregards the First Amendment, but also the very nature of an initial public offering, which depends on vigorous debate by informed investors.” Moreover, she found that as a public company, Cliffs is a public figure in a limited sense and therefore bears a greater burden of proof for critics attempting to overcome a First Amendment defense.
A Cliffs spokesman said the company was considering whether to appeal after the ruling on May 29. “Judge Turner's ruling means that Cliffs does not even know if this repeat poster, who cowardly hides behind a nickname, is an individual or group of people attacking local Cleveland employers and their executives,” spokesman Pat Persico added in a statement.
Cliffs previously sued Yahoo to uncover the identities of three online critics and later settled a defamation lawsuit against them out of court, cleveland.com's Corey Schafer reported.
Now Cleveland-Cliffs needs to take Judge Turner's ruling seriously, recognize that anonymous opinions are constitutionally protected speech, and move forward.
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