Naming and Shaming

mikemac

It's something I see a lot of on boards and maybe a mod can clarify if there is an exact rule on it.

There are countless threads about people moaning about dodgy estate agents, car dealers or builders as examples
Spend 5 minutes in the motors forum and you will see this.

But the OP rarely if ever names and shames or else they are instructed not to.

But at the same thing powerful corporations with dozens of lawyers are lashed every day around here. Eircom, NTL (and rightly so ), 3 and Dell are examples.
If anyone can quickly take legal action it would be one of these corporations.

So I would like to know about the double standard.
Why can posters lash Microsoft for example but not Tom's Dodgy Car Dealership in some town in Ireland?

RuggieBear

the way i see it (and thus this is probably complete arse) is that the bigger companies would more or less ignore it as it is inconsequential to them (or will pass it to their PR department) while the smaller places tend to be a bit more anxious and will go running for their solicitors much quicker.

Double standard...yeah probably.

PeakOutput

as far as i remember there have a been a few small business's who have had solicitors letters sent to boards and then obviously one big company has done it. i doubt they have had a letter from a multinational

the whole things is ridicolous though if someone is expressing there opinion and does it as just that (their opinion) and not fact then there is nothing illegal or libelous about it but the boards owners dont want to take any chances which is fair enough

Crumble Froo

actually,this was a point of considerable debate in the body modification forum recently. our usual rule was 'name and shame' if a certain place didnt live up to hygiene/quality standards, and a few people complained that the general customer service etc of one place had gone downhill... it had been one of the places people wouldnt have a problem in recommending, and ahd gone down to people advising to actively avoiding it, or starting threads to give out about it....

all seemed grand til people from the place itself got wind of it... there was a lot of tension on the boards for a while, as people argued and defended and attacked and all that.

it's pretty much resolved now, i think . the lack of customer service was brought to the attention to the company, (though not in the ideal way) and one of the employees there often posts helpful advice etc to people now.

i think one should definitely be careful about accusations, and how far they are allowed to be taken when it comes to naming companies. that case was a huge eye opener to the regulars in the bodmod forum.

Sherifu

Until the laws change in Ireland, boards needs to protect itself as those fukcing ticket touts shall remain nameless guys proved. It's my understanding that the owners can be brought to court for something you or I say as things stand now. Crazy.

PeakOutput

rkm wrote: »

Until the laws change in Ireland, boards needs to protect itself as those fukcing ticket touts shall remain nameless guys proved. It's my understanding that the owners can be brought to court for something you or I say as things stand now. Crazy.

ye but only if its presented as fact if its opinion then no1 can take anyone to court. how do you think restaurant critics get away with slating places?*


*im not a legal expert but this is how it was explained to me by one

RuggieBear

Problem is that the way most of these name and shame posts are phrased it is impossible to distinguish between whether it is meant as fact or opinion (if that makes sense).

Sherifu

How can you determine whats given as an opinion and whats presented as fact?

edit: Ruggie beat me to it

_JOE_

A suggestion I would make would be to sticky a topic in the aforementioned forums and state that comments made must be justified (ie no random rants...)

Terry

RuggieBear wrote: »

Problem is that the way most of these name and shame posts are phrased it is impossible to distinguish between whether it is meant as fact or opinion (if that makes sense).

Indeed.
Terry's car shop is a kip.

You can't really tell if that is opinion or fact.

Marksie

rkm wrote: »

How can you determine whats given as an opinion and whats presented as fact?

edit: Ruggie beat me to it

Perhaps it should be made clear and then the poster could put
In my opinion : <insert rant>

Sherifu

I had thought of that. I don't think it would stop any legal threats, do you?

biko

If a poster says "The mechanic at John Does Garage said it'd take 2 days to fix my engine. After 10 days they still hadn't fixed it" then it's fact and should be ok to post.

"John Does Garage always takes a ****ing long time and is too expensive" is not fact.

the_syco

_JOE_ wrote: »

A suggestion I would make would be to sticky a topic in the aforementioned forums and state that comments made must be justified (ie no random rants...)

Unless said person can justify it in a court of a law, it may be seen as liable.

The treatment is seen to be better than the cure.

RuggieBear

biko wrote: »

If a poster says "The mechanic at John Does Garage said it'd take 2 days to fix my engine. After 10 days they still hadn't fixed it" then it's fact

Prove it.

stevenmu

I think in general larger companies tend to be more accepting of the fact that there is inevitably going to be some criticism on the net about them. Most of them are smart enough enough to realise that trying to clamp down in it is only shooting themselves in the foot, for e.g. Dell have been complained about a lot on boards, but they get a hell of a lot more recommendations here than complaints. A smaller enough are smart enough to realise that engaging with people is better again, for e.g. Komplett have a customer interaction forum here, people often post complaints which are addressed by a komplett representative and usually everyone ends up happy, and I'd imagine Komplett are making a nice few pennys from boards users.

Other companies, quite often small ones, but not always, think it's better to just call the lawyers than to improve their own practices. Unfortunately the laws at the moment mean we have to be very careful about these people.

PeakOutput

the soup is horrible = fact

I felt the soup was horrible = opinion

the chef is a talentless waste of space = fact

from the taste of the food i believe the chef is a talentless waste of space = opinion

its not hard to get around BUT if you were to allow people post about the things we are not allowed to post about now as long as they follow those rules it would recquire much more moderation. along the lines of the legal discussion forum were aything that is not phrased as a hypothetical situation is deleted


maybe a line of text inserted beside the time and date of the post saying "it is my opinion that..."

KdjaCL

Doesnt matter if its opinion or fact, its published by boards.ie so regardless of the username its boards.ie that is publishing to the world.


kdjac

MrJoeSoap

I'd imagine that "facts" would surely be a lot easier to prove and defend in a court of law, and hence companies might be less likely to complain about specific examples.

Opinions such as "X company are crap" would be a lot easier to make a claim against, were it to come to that.

PeakOutput

KdjaCL wrote: »

Doesnt matter if its opinion or fact, its published by boards.ie so regardless of the username its boards.ie that is publishing to the world.


kdjac

opinion is not libelous(sp) / slanderous under the law as i said already food critics get published slating places all the time and its perfectly legal

edit; im completely prepared to be proved wrong by the way as i said im no legal expert but i was shown very clear examples of people getting in trouble for one article out of 100's because it was phrased as fact and not opinion

KdjaCL

It doesnt matter about opinion and fact on the internet, its publishing it via website that makes it easy money for solicitors.

If i had a house party invited you and you posted here that the toilets and security where **** either factual or opinon based, i coud sue here for publishing either.


kdjac

PeakOutput

KdjaCL wrote: »

It doesnt matter about opinion and fact on the internet, its publishing it via website that makes it easy money for solicitors.

If i had a house party invited you and you posted here that the toilets and security where **** either factual or opinon based, i coud sue here for publishing either.


kdjac

sue them for what though? simply speaking on the internet does not open you up to lawsuits

KdjaCL

PeakOutput wrote: »

sue them for what though? simply speaking on the internet does not open you up to lawsuits

Sadly yes it does, but the point is its not you its boards.ie that publisher thats responsible for its content.

Derry City Football Club linked to a blog that contained factual evidence that the FAI are incompetent, the FAI fined them 5 grand and threatened to take them to court over a link, the article was on another website and was 100% factual.

had the FAI took them to court they would have won as the law at the moment bases any written word on the pubishers doorstep.

It was a link to a blog on another website yet still Derry City would have lost.

kdjac

mikemac

The fact that Derry City are not even in this jurisdiction make help them get away with the fine.
I'm no lawyer, it's just what struck me about the post. Of course, the FAI would probably kick them out of the league.

Which raises an interesting point.
Bringing a libel case in the Republic can be done by any solicitor but I'm sure it would be more difficult if it was in another state. International law and all that.

I believe the owner of Boards.ie is based in Galway so I'll assume this is a Republic of Ireland company.
Can posters tear into some dodgy travel agent in Omagh or a rip-off hotel in Newry as examples without fear of prosecution?

Sherifu

micmclo wrote: »

I believe the owner of Boards.ie is based in Galway so I'll assume this is a Republic of Ireland company.

Don't let Devore see that

PeakOutput

KdjaCL wrote: »

Sadly yes it does, but the point is its not you its boards.ie that publisher thats responsible for its content.

ye i understand that its boards that gets held responsible im asking on what grounds would they sue boards. you are suggesting that every single post on the board is open to a lawsuit regardless of the content. now im not saying your wrong im just asking can you explain why?

Orion

PeakOutput wrote: »

ye but only if its presented as fact if its opinion then no1 can take anyone to court. how do you think restaurant critics get away with slating places?*

*im not a legal expert but this is how it was explained to me by one

You should read the papers There's a Belfast paper appealing a court judgement that they libelled a restaurant by only giving them 1 * and criticising the service and atmosphere in the place. It's an appeal that could have serious repercussions if they lose it.

Orion

rkm wrote: »

Don't let Devore see that

Dev's just an employee of Cloud

Orion

PeakOutput wrote: »

ye i understand that its boards that gets held responsible im asking on what grounds would they sue boards. you are suggesting that every single post on the board is open to a lawsuit regardless of the content. now im not saying your wrong im just asking can you explain why?

It's old laws - pre-internet. The publisher of anything is liable for what's published. The problem is that a newspaper has control over what it prints but an internet forum doesn't have control over what people post. The law doesn't reflect that difference so essentially boards.ie is classed as a publisher and is liable for anything said on the forums if it is defamatory. That's where the mods come in - but anything they do it reactive - as in removing offending posts. However, once it's been posted it's in a permanent record. They can take the defence that they acted promptly but that's no guarantee of success in a lawsuit.

PeakOutput

Macros42 wrote: »

It's old laws - pre-internet. The publisher of anything is liable for what's published. The problem is that a newspaper has control over what it prints but an internet forum doesn't have control over what people post. The law doesn't reflect that difference so essentially boards.ie is classed as a publisher and is liable for anything said on the forums if it is defamatory. That's where the mods come in - but anything they do it reactive - as in removing offending posts. However, once it's been posted it's in a permanent record. They can take the defence that they acted promptly but that's no guarantee of success in a lawsuit.

ye i understand that part alright. my point was that the poster still has to break the old defamation or liable laws for them to be able to sue boards and expressing an opinion as long as it is done as an opinion does not break these laws.

i think i heard paulo tulio(sp) talkng about that case on the radio alright marco but i cant remember the details

Orion

PeakOutput wrote: »

ye i understand that part alright. my point was that the poster still has to break the old defamation or liable laws for them to be able to sue boards and expressing an opinion as long as it is done as an opinion does not break these laws.

I misunderstood your question so. You're right to an extent. Anyone can take a lawsuit regardless of what's said - but if it's done frivolously the courts take a dim view. There should be good grounds for it being taken. And personal opinion certainly shouldn't be grounds however the court case in Belfast that I referred to above is an opinion that was successfully sued.

Link

DeVore

"opinion" (or sticking "allegedly" in front of something) makes no difference whatsoever.

Firstly lets bring some reasonably trustworthy "facts" to this discussion.

Read this: http://indigo.ie/~kwood/defamation.htm

"An actionable defamatory statement has three ingredients:

it must be published,
it must refer to the complainant and
it must be false."

The major problem is that while we (you and us) cannot be sued if your statement is true, we (boards admin) can't know if it is or if you are being malicious.

There is some defence along the lines of "fair comment" but its very limited. Ireland basically has extraordinaraily controlled freedoms of speech....

DeV.

WhiteWashMan

DeVore wrote: »

"opinion" (or sticking "allegedly" in front of something) makes no difference whatsoever.

Firstly lets bring some reasonably trustworthy "facts" to this discussion.

Read this: http://indigo.ie/~kwood/defamation.htm

"An actionable defamatory statement has three ingredients:

it must be published,
it must refer to the complainant and
it must be false."

The major problem is that while we (you and us) cannot be sued if your statement is true, we (boards admin) can't know if it is or if you are being malicious.

There is some defence along the lines of "fair comment" but its very limited. Ireland basically has extraordinaraily controlled freedoms of speech....

DeV.

This has been a big debating point for years in the Work forum. there have been a lot of very very unhappy people come onto the forum and rant about this that and the other company, agency, whatever.
We have also had this on the consumer issues forum as well.

my take is that if someone wants to put up a post complaining about the level of service, or their treatment ina company, then thats perfectly acceptable to do so.

This is a community forum and I have no problems with people being warned about potential employers, products or services which do not live up to the expectations of the public.

All complaints however, are not to be mere opinions and ranting. I ask that any complaints made are factual, the reason for the complainst are laid open for anyone to decide for themselves, and that the level of name calling be pretty much zero. THis is a not a site for soapboxing, but a site for communication and information sharing.

And we have also had several companies respond over the years, and while occassionally we get the 'youre all crap' type fighting that goes on, we have had far more resolutions. we have had several companies explain thier side of the story, and the customer has been made happy with transparent fixes. All good and well.

At the moment, there is a cracking thread onthe Work forum about a 'marketing' company called Galloping marketing I think. \Check it out. Its a great example of this community warning potential employees against a poition that is falsely advertised.
Selling cheap and falsely marketed goods on the streets and in stores out of a breif case is not what is advertised, rather, marketing and sales positions, with potential for advancement to management si what is advertised.
We have even managed to get one of irelands top recruitment sites to not take any more of their adverts. Power to the people and all that. Thats what this site is about.

Tom's Dodgy Car Dealership in some town in Ireland?

they have been. If they are not providing a good service there is no reason not to name and shame. The problem is when people get on a soap box as mentioned and spout misinformation, dnot give the full story.

Eoin

PeakOutput wrote: »

ye but only if its presented as fact if its opinion then no1 can take anyone to court. how do you think restaurant critics get away with slating places?*


*im not a legal expert but this is how it was explained to me by one

I know it was in Belfast, and not the Republic, but a newspaper just got successfully sued for their food critic slating a place - they're not immune either...

PeakOutput wrote:

the soup is horrible = fact

I felt the soup was horrible = opinion

Those are both opinions. "Horrible" is a subjective term.

DeVore

When these things are brought to our attention we have to a make a decision on each case. What any of us "think" about this, we don't know. We might be finding out this year though...

DeV.