litigous comments on websites

[emcf]

Hi all,

i am a member of a website based in the uk (http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/) and the owner is getting concerned about people slagging off companies on his boards. he is concerned that one of the defamed companies may start legal action against the website for publishing libellous comments.

from what i can tell he can protect the website by having appropriate wording in the T&Cs and allow users to complain about specific posts in a thread which may be actionable.

does anyone have any views on this area of internet law? would such an approach protect the website from legal action? the website is very useful and it would be a shame to have it advesely affected by legal action.

rdgs,

Euan

 

[dt01pqt]

Does anyone have any views on this area of internet law? would such an approach protect the website from legal action? the website is very useful and it would be a shame to have it advesely affected by legal action.

rdgs,

Euan

Since you are talking about 'slagging off' rather than libel it is harder to make things stick. Still stranger things have happened. Julia Roberts successfully sued the owners of JuliaRoberts.com and won the rights to the name. It all depends on the Judge that is overseeing the action and which jurisdiction. There is no such thing as 'internet law' only laws regarding internet transmission/publishing in different countries. Most things come under common law.

I suggest the site owner do two things.

1. Put the following disclaimer on the forum: "The views on this forum are those of individuals and not necessarily the views of the site owner."

2. In the forum signup agreement: "As a forum member you will take legal responsibility for the posts and the site owners and administrators/moderators will not be responsible for posted content. However the site owners and administrators/moderators will reserve the right to remove or edit any comments that we deem offensive. In this case the site owners and administrators/moderators will keep a record of the original offensive text."

You need to also define 'forum' and 'post'.

 

[emcf]

thankd dt,

yes, it is slagging off rather than anything more serious (as far as i am aware). it seems some people have had a bad experience at the hands of a company and wanted to vent their feelings to potential customers of this firm. some of the comments may be justified but some probably go past the acceptable. from the posts i had read the poster did have a pretty rough time because of the incompetence of the company - and when they complained they said they got pretty short shrift from the company.

i think the best thing for the owner would be to put those disclaimers you mention and also get professional legal advice.