Public Forum Slander/Defamation Post (Edited)

clint_silver

If you run a forum (hoping theres 1 or 2 round here who do) and someone puts a slanderous or abusive post up. If its caught by the mods, they remove, if someone PMs a mod about it, theyll usually remove as well. where does the affected person stand.

If I run a forum and user abc has put up "I seen X hitting Y on on date Z"

Where does X stand if its proven that he hit Y.
Can abc still post that info. If, before anythign is proven about X, can he get the mods to provide legal info or are the admins and mods legally responsable for the post?

I know its greyish but I understood that as long as the post is taken down when notified of it then theyre in the clear.

Tom Young

I don't quite get the query to be frank, we talk X, Y and then abc!

Do we have editorial control over some of the lunatics who decide to come on here and trol, spam, advertise, discuss completely outlandish crud and others who just like to rant? Answer is no, not initially.

Basically, the legal position is that the defamatory remark is not the responsibility of boards.ie or the host until such time as the report/post has been complained of, or a moderator had proactively decided something is borderline or actually defamatory, or indeed in contravention of the forum.

There is an EU eCommerce Directive which provides for a defence under article 14, I think it might be Regulation 18 in the Irish S.I. which is S.I. 69 of 2003 which transposes the EU Directive into Irish law. In relation to this and indeed case law to this effect.

Mulvaney & Ors -v- The Sporting Exchange Ltd trading as Betfair Neutral Citation: [2009] IEHC 133 in addition to the case of Bunt v Tilley [2007] 1 WLR 1243 which is a UK case dealing with information type services.

So, liability may arise once the defamation is complained of and potentially not subject to action in good time.

I think your assumption above re. "in the clear" would be correct.

Tom

PS: For those interested, the whole Copyright and file sharing debacle which is on going and the concept of mere conduit defence for ISPs arises from the same Directive - Framework Article 12.

clint_silver

By Jiminy, I reread the post, I was in a hurry when I typed it, not very clear at all.

You answered my main question ok, many thanks, Id read the betfair case.

As a follow on, what can the slandered person demand of the moderators?
(I'll try and give an example without x and y's )

user johndoe sends a pm to the mods with
"In a post, user clint_silver said I was involved in something which I wasnt, I want the post removed, the user banned and I want any personal information you have on him or I'll sue, ring the gards, turn up on your doorstep with a court order etc,etc.."

Where do mods of any forum stand on the rest of the demands of a slandered person?

I got a pm similar to this, I removed the relevant post straight away (it was just muppetry and i deemed it not that bad but the affected person has gone nuts over it). Im currently refusing to give out personal information anyway.

Tom Young

Well this is a matter for the individual circumstance of a case, but in general terms they possibly should have removed it. I know we can't deal with caching elsewhere e.g., google cashing, so a removed post could still be exiting somewhere.

I suspect that as action was taking the liability would be at issue. I for one do not thing that the mod would be liable as there should be some form of constructive notice of forum guidelines in a charter etc.

It does depend on the nature of the complaint.

In a couple of recent UK and US Cases 'Nightjack' aka: The Owner of a blog v Times Newspapers, the host and blogger was compelled by the courts to give over private information about an anonymous blogger. Likewise in the US last week an anonymous blogger was exposed in terms of her private information.

I think as matters stand, you would have to be ordered by a court to give your details. That might have to be an order against boards.ie or whoever the operators/host of the forum are and even then they may not know precisely who the natural being is.

I always caution folks on using the Internet. No matter where you go, who you purport to be and how private you thing your settings are - you can be traced IP addresses, telephone numbers, PC Identification etc.

Tom