Gripe site

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A gripe site is a type of website devoted to the critique and or mockery of a person, place, politician, corporation or institution. They are also known as "complaint" or "sucks" sites. The Internet provides a low cost public platform for anyone, even of modest means, to reach a global audience via a "gripe" website. It is the high-tech equivalent of having a soap box at “Speakers Corner” in Hyde Park, London – that long-established bastion of free speech. The web gives ordinary individuals the opportunity to publicly criticise the rich and powerful, including multinational corporations. Many of these websites contain interesting and entertaining content because the publishers are passionate (and possibly obsessed) about the featured subject. Time and money is invested in the hope of gaining satisfaction by airing a perceived grievance and embarrassing the party which is the target of the "gripe".

The following definition of a "gripe site" is from comments authored by a notable American lawyer, Mr Paul Levy, and published online by Public Citizen, a Washington D.C. based organization founded in 1971 by consumer champion Ralph Nader: A "gripe site" is a web site established to criticize an institution such as a corporation, union, government body, or political figure. Not surprisingly, powerful institutions often do not take kindly to being criticized, and they have invented a variety of ways to try to suppress the speech of their adversaries. Mr Levy is also a lawyer within the associated Public Citizen Litigation Group, another non-profit making organisation. He is the founder of the groups “Public Internet Free Speech Project”, cited below under the heading of "Defenders of Free Speech Gripe Sites.

In an attempt to shut down a gripe site and stifle free speech companies have sued the gripe site owner alleging defamation, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, libel and copyright infringement. Public Citizen, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have defended gripe site owners in court on the grounds that free speech gripe sites are protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.