back to article Reader comments bigger legal risk than forums

Media sites which ask readers to comment on news stories are at greater risk of bearing responsibility for those comments than for comments in online forums or discussion groups, leading web moderators have warned. Though there are few verdicts to help lawyers and site moderators come up with hard and fast rules, it is …

COMMENTS

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  1. Adrian Boutel

    Lawyers?

    Be interested to hear the legal theory here. What's _running a forum_ if not an invitation to comment?

  2. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Coat

    Presumably this will be...

    modded before it's displayed?

    Mine's the one with the self-censorship chip in the pocket.

  3. Gilbert Wham

    Goodbye, Internets...

    But, I, they... bheheheh.... That's unpossible! The interrnet's very raison d'etre is the posting of rambling, ill thought-out screeds by retards. What will we all *do*?

  4. dervheid
    Coat

    Oh! Sues you sir!

    Looks like it could be open season for the legal fraternity then. Allegedly!

    Must remember to be more careful when commenting.

    Allegedly.

    W***ers! (Allegedly)

    Pockets being emptied by the lawyers (Allegedly)

  5. Dave
    Stop

    This seems counter intuitive

    May I check if I have this correct?

    A web site publisher who exercises no editorial control over the content of the site not written by him is likely to be less burdened by litigation than a (I posit) more responsible publisher who employs people to moderate contributions such as this one.

    So Vulture Central will now be in a more sound position by not moderating this comment?

    Bonkers

  6. Christoph

    Casual comments

    "[Bulletin board posts] are rather like contributions to a casual conversation (the analogy sometimes being drawn with people chatting in a bar) which people simply note before moving on; they are often uninhibited, casual and ill thought out."

    Would this change if the comment gets massively linked to or slashdotted?

  7. Matt

    Differeces and juristiction

    It doesn't help that comments can be viewed from around the world and that each country has it's own ideas of what's OK and what's not. Even worse with the US which thinks it's laws are pre-eminent.

    On a practical point of view surly comments fall into the same category as the traditional newspaper letters section.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    In that case...

    I heard that the staff of out-law.com torture squirrels with pointy sticks. I've also been told Reg hacks burn defenceless ants with magnifying glasses.

    Does this count then (or will I be censored just in case)?

    (PH is used to web-based legal issues...)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    True but

    John Mackenzie still loves teh cock

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Christoph

    @ Dave

    Yes, it does actually make some sense. If you don't moderate, you have no control over what's said (and may not be able to for something like LiveJournal where there are far too many comments to screen them). It's an analogy with the phone system, where the phone company is not responsible for things said on the phone even though they transmit them.

    But if you exercise *any* editorial control at all, you are deemed to have taken an active part in publishing the comments and are therefore held responsible for them. You have actively decided that that specific comment is to be published.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    One word

    Jihad !

    < followed by sound of el reg's doors being kicked in>

  13. paul browne

    ISP

    Did this mean that as soon as the ISP`s start filtering packets for P2P that they will be held responsiable for any traffic that they miss, as they have looked at the packet then allowed it to carry on?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lawyers

    Remember the old saying about what's the definition of 1000 lawyers laying drowned at the bottom of the Sea?

    answer: a good start

    (note the absence of a joke icon)

  15. Mike Clark
    Alert

    The risk is not libel, it is contempt of court

    It seems to me that to invite reader comments on certain news stories is to risk breaching the strict court reporting rules about what can be said when. For example, when reporting a crime, you can pretty much speculate at will until somebody is charged, then you must be very careful until they have been tried. To allow readers to post "Glad they've got that toerag locked up, he's obviously guilty, I know him and he's been in trouble for the same thing before" at the bottom of your article would not be clever and could possibly get the case thrown out on the basis that it is no longer possible for the suspect to get a fair trial.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Ridiculous

    Surely this is nothing but anthrax Iran nuclear device twin towers kill the president pedophile North Korea dirty bomb pure scaremongering?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    So can I still say this?

    Fact 1) The CTO at Phorm is a nice bloke called Stratis Scleparis

    http://www.phorm.com/about/exec_scleparis.php

    Fact 2) Before he was at Phorm, Stratis was CTO at BT Retail, where his responsibilities must surely have included authorising (and then authorising denial of) the secret and quite possibly illegal BT/Phorm internet interception trials

    Fact 3) BT have an ethics policy which covers employees going to work for suppliers etc. A prize to anyone who can find evidence it's ever been used.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    How to post a comment on YouTube

    http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on

  19. Dave
    Black Helicopters

    @ Mike Clark

    I've certainly noticed that even people like the Daily Mail make damn sure that comments are turned off if the case is sub judice, as Judge hauls editor into the dock for contempt does not make the best of stories for the editor concerned, even if the rest of the papers enjoy reporting that.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stop acting like children...

    .... you make me realise that everyone in existence, past, present and future, is an arsehole.

    I would LOVE to not have had to anonymous coward this, but unfortunately I found out that if you google my name my register comments appear pretty early on and I don't really want someone randomly googling me, reading that comment, and thinking I'm serious because they haven't bothered clicking through to the link.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    "uninhibited, casual, and ill thought out"

    Now that would be a good slogan for a website. It ranks up there with "truculent, devious, and unreliable".

  22. Skinny

    So does this mean

    That the Moderatrix has not only the responsibility of ensuring only the cream of the comment crop get published (which has to make you wonder what the quality of the ones that don't get passed her are like)

    But she also has the responsibilty of ensuring El Reg doesn't get sued back into the stone ages? Now that's quite some whip she's wielding over her employers!

  23. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: So does this mean

    What it means is that I'll have a fine white head of hair by Christmas. And finely-ground teeth.

  24. Dave

    surely the point is (@ Christoph) @ Skinny

    all Moderatrices will now be summarily sacked as any miniscule drop-off in their performance will be too great a risk for the site owner to mitigate?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Ashley Pomeroy et al

    "uninhibited, casual, and ill thought out"

    Huh? I don't recall publishing my CV!

  26. J

    "Tempero, a moderation firm"

    Huh!? Now I can say I've seen it all... Moderation firm. I wonder how long it will take for them to start outsourcing this too. Or have they already? Are they gonna kill my comment!?

    @Sarah Bee

    Don't worry, I believe you will still look cute in white hair. Not so sure about the teeth though...

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @@Lawyers?

    Adrian Boutel, Well "running a forum" in the minds of a Labour Govt is using it as a megaphone but crushing any comments it does not like to hear. Yes Labour speak with forked tongues.

  28. Frumious Bandersnatch
    Paris Hilton

    how long before ...

    el Reg has to add a "choose a disclaimer" box below the icon selection box?

    This post is illogical, ill-thought out and not representative of valid opinion anywhere.

  29. Law
    Dead Vulture

    I wonder...

    how many comments have been blocked as people decide to see how far they can push el-reg.

    Dead vulture - because I know phorm are in the process of generating some sick comments and getting ready calling their solicitors! One less annoying group of semi-intelligent people to ask inconvenient questions on tha interweb!

  30. RW
    Joke

    Dear Sarah Bee

    Get those teeth sharpened to points instead of grinding them.

    BTW, I know a rogue dentist who can install hollow canines with poison sacs so you can bite people and poison them. A variety of venoms are available including one which causes the bones and cartilage to dissolve, but the one I like is the one that makes the bitee turn purple and swell up like a balloon.

  31. Ross

    Ppl believe what they read on t'internet?!

    As I recall, both defamation and slander require that you (the person being defamed or slandered) go down in the estimation of more than one person as a result of what somebody else wrote/said. If you can find two ppl that believe what they read on an internet forum about someone then you should probably ask to move to another asylum.

  32. Duncan
    Thumb Up

    Re: I wonder...

    "how many comments have been blocked as people decide to see how far they can push el-reg."

    I'd be quite interested to see some graphs and stats! Bet they have some cracking comments stuck up on the wall in the El Reg office they couldn't publish! :)

  33. Mark

    re: Differeces and juristiction

    So the law the page must obey is the one in the URL.

    .uk? UK law.

    .us? US law.

    etc.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Allegedly : I have a cunning plan

    Allegedly: Just a bit of reg exp.

    Allegedly: A quick browser plugin, to remove it again, at the behest of the viewer.

    Allegedly: Version 1 Out Now.

    Allegedly: sed -i 's/^/Allegedly: / /' comment

    Allegedly: then pop into address bar of browser

    Allegedly: JavaScript:p=document.getElementsByTagName('p');for(k=0;k<p.length;++k){f=p[k].firstChild;t=f.nodeValue;if(t){t=t.replace(/Allegedly/g,'');void(f.nodeValue=t);}}

    Allegedly: Or if you are web maestro (better than master yes?) add it in button form

    Allegedly: Available for Weddings, Bar & Bat Mitzvahs, also Discos as well.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Allgedely: I have a cunning plan - Correction

    Allegedly: sed -i 's/^/Allegedly: / /' comment

    Allegedly to:

    Allegedly: sed -i 's/^/Allegedly: /' comment

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