IS ANYONE THESE DAYS NOT A LIMITED-PURPOSE PUBLIC FIGURE? I may lose my First Amendment lawyer card for this, but Glenn’s earlier post about the Joy Reid lawsuit brings up a huge problem with libel law in the Internet age: the famous person you sue for libeling you on Twitter is effectively the one who makes you a public figure, and therefore gets to make winning a suit against them almost impossible (at least, if you can’t afford a hugely expensive trip to federal appeals court, and maybe not then). If people think a free press means the press gets to destroy random Americans with impunity, why wouldn’t they stop supporting it?

Update: I managed to confuse people here. The district court found that she was a limited purpose public figure; this article was about the Second Circuit reversing that finding, hence my comment about the expensive trip to appeals court. Sorry I was not clearer!