Speaking of state supreme courts, the California Supreme Court last week issued a ruling that online review site Yelp.com cannot be forced to remove posts from a third party against a business. In the case of Hassell v Bird, San Francisco personal injury lawyer Dawn Hassell objected to negative reviews she received from former client Ava Bird, claiming they were defamatory. As Bird didn’t show up to fight the issue in court, the reviews were ruled defamatory by default and an order to remove them was issued, and upheld on appeal. Bird refused to acquiesce to the court order and Yelp took the case to the state Supreme Court. In the hotly contested case, the court ruled 4-3 that Yelp cannot be ordered to remove even defamatory posts since to do so could be a means to silence online speech and “interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform. Hassell is considering an appeal to the US Supreme Court.