Forum Moderators: rogerd
Let's say I run a forum that discusses professional athletes in a certain sport. The purpose of the forum wiil be to assess each athlete in order to decide which team they will help the most (drafts, trades, etc). The forum participants are the fans, athletes, coaches and management of the league.
A forum message is posted that player "x" has a drug problem (stock plummets). Allegation is not substantiated or disproven. Player x's lawyer writes me threatening to sue for libel (defamation?).
Can I write a TOS that allows this to happen and yet protects me from being successfully sued?
rharri
If you don't do this you might as well hand over control of your forum to the trolls and flamers. You'll have no leg to stand on if you have a later complaint about their behaviour.
And don't be put off by cries of "free speech". This is not a free speech issue, since the poster is perfectly at liberty to post the allegations on his or her own website. It's about keeping your forum clean and to the point.
Even if you don't have such a system, always print off the offending post so that you have something to refer to. (This is what I do at the moment, and it's not as good as having stuff available online, but it's better than nothing).
The way I was thinking of it had to do with what might affect performance.
Let's take basketball and assume that we're talking about a potential center. Remember, the purpose of this forum is to evaluate talent. What about these comments:
A. "Gets tired easily"
B. "Avoids contact - won't mix it up under the backboard"
C. "Free throwing is *very* suspect"
D. "Has said he won't play for Detroit (see 1/21/2004 Detroit newspaper)"
E. "Is rumored to have a drinking problem"
Which would you delete, A, B, C, D, E, All of the above?
rharri
Every single message post in Yahoo stock forums is all speculation and probably 95% of it is libel.
Take a look at their TOS.
Dang! Can they be sued for anything? I guess the answer is that there is no answer without talking to a lawyer about specifics. Thanks.
rharri
Which would you delete, A, B, C, D, E, All of the above?
If the point of the forum is to evaluate basketball player's talent, them the TOS should clearly state that posters should should discuss playing qualities not personal qualities.
Thus, A, B and D are going to be perfectly okay, since evidence can be presented and discussed. It is, after all, the discussion of objective evidence that you want to encourage in such a forum.
I not sure quite what is meant by C. If by "suspect" it means that the player might be taking bribes, then it's a no-no unless evidence is offered along with the allegation. In this case, you might want some proof of the poster's identity as well.
Ditto with E, unless this is, say, pointing to a newspaper article making the allegation. But your TOS should clearly state that unsubstantiated allegations about individuals must not be made in the forum, and that you will delete or edit anything that contravenes this.
It is a bit scary when you do delete something, I'll admit. I certainly feel uncomfortable and have all kinds of premonitions about being accused of censorship. But if you feel that a post is not right then you should remove it for the greater good of the forum. Most people in a forum like the one you describe will be there because they want to discuss sport, and most will back you up if you protect their discussions from being disprupted by trolls and their obnoxious relatives.
Can they be sued for anything?
That's the real problem. Even if you do everything in a legal and proper manner, you can STILL get sued by someone with more resources than you. Even if you win in the long run, you'll have spent many hours and lots of money on legal fees.
I can't cite a case, but I've heard comments that forum owners have some protection from the actions of their posters. Nevertheless, I'd err on the side of removing potentially slanderous statements.
In the US, you can get a fair amount of protection for copyright issues through provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that were setup to protect ISPs and others from actions of their customers. I do not know how well the ideas can be extended to libelous statements.
"While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material at the earliest opportunity, it is impossible to review every forum message immediately. Therefore you acknowledge that each post made to this forum expresses only the views and opinions of its respective author and not those of the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these people), nor of the [SITE NAME] website in general. Hence these parties will not be held liable."
That should account for anything that you miss.
In many cases it's not feasible, but restricting some discussions to a members-only forum may help, too. That keeps out search engine spiders and random surfers. It's not a perfect defense by any means, but at least if someone Googles himself he won't find your members discussing his point-shaving-for-drugs history. ;)
Bill
I'd probably worry less about public figures and more about companies. Allegations that a firm is engaged in fraud or that their products are dangerous is far more likely to result in litigation, IMO, than comments by a random poster about a celebrity.
Companies pursue negative press based not on privacy rights but commercial interference. They need to claim you intend to cause harm or interfere, or did so out of negligence or disregard etc.
The big thing in commercial cases is "is it TRUE". If it is true, you can say it safely (although it may cost you to defend yourself, of course).
