Democratic Underground


Democratic Underground is an online community for U.S. Democrats. Its membership is restricted by policy to those who are supportive of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates for political office.

History

On Election Day 2016, the forum was hacked by unknown parties who replaced posts with pro-Trump messages like "God Emperor" and a video that contained the Statue of Liberty singing "Hold Back the Night" by the Protomen and a meme showing then-Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump pointing a gun at the viewer while using a homophobic expletive and saying "We're Making America Great Again."

Criticism

Discussions from posters at DU have drawn criticism. One example of this was the dialog about the 2004 tsunami disaster, in which a few posts explored the possibility of "earthquake weapons". The posts were reported by The New York Times and Fox News. The administrators also sent a letter to the Times, which was printed.
The site also saw criticism when, in 2003, a poster explained why he or she wished to see continued bloodshed in Iraq.

Copyright infringement lawsuit

In 2010, Democratic Underground was sued for alleged copyright infringement in a member's posting of a few paragraphs from an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The suit was brought by Righthaven, an entity that finds Review-Journal quotations online, buys the copyright for that story from the newspaper, and retroactively sues for copyright infringement. In response to the lawsuit, DU asserted that the quoted excerpt was fair use, and counterclaimed against Righthaven for fraud, barratry, and champerty. DU is being represented in the case pro bono by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, attorneys from the firm of Winston & Strawn, and Las Vegas attorney Chad Bowers. After Righthaven lost a similar suit against Realty One Group over 8 of 30 sentences quoted from a news article, Righthaven asked the judge in the case against Democratic Underground to dismiss Righthaven's claim against DU.
In June 14, 2011, Judge Roger L. Hunt ruled that Righthaven be dismissed from the case because Righthaven had never owned the copyright of the article and gave Righthaven two weeks to explain in writing why it should not be sanctioned.