Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Actually that is the worst approach for an amateur site to take - a policy of pre-moderation makes it a lot more difficult for the site owners to defend themselves against charges like this, or claims of libel, because they make themselves actively complicit in the publication of the material.

Moderation after the fact, coupled with a robust system allowing for the reporting of abuse (and dealing with it quickly) is the best way of ensuring internet forums continue to exist for the long term and don't begin to fall foul of prosecutions and litigation due to the inability of a few idiot trolls to behave like normally-functioning members of society.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

True..

Thankfully, this is true. In fact, in all the years I have been modding here, I can only think of one ocassion where the post I dealt with would (I think) fit the definition of Grossly Offensive. I can't remember specifics (what it was about, who posted etc), and obviously even if I could, I would not discuss it.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I appreciate the fact that there's probably no absolute guarantee that something might slip through the vetting process, but we're talking about (at a guess) a message of fairly easy to identify hatred.

Surely it's no different to the way things run on this site, a mod notices or is informed of a problem post, removes it from public view, and does whatever they can to prevent the idiot responsible from causing further problems?

Am not experienced in libel laws, but i know something about common sense, and would have thought the terms a person agrees to when they sign up to a forum, and use of disclaimer notices, would prevent the site from being culpable? especially if it's shown that those running the site have done all they can to prevent such an occurrence, rather than just allow an unmoderated free for all..

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I think Chris's point is that with a lot of laws, organisations can get away with little or no punishment if the law is broken on something they are responsible for *if* they can show they have robust procedures to prevent and deal with lawbreaking. We do. If a post is reported, and is found to break the site rules, it's removed immediately.

If a system of moderating posts before they are published is introduced and a mod approves an illegal post, it could be seen that the site admins have published the post.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Fair point; it is unlikely that something criminally offensive would slip though, but something libellous might well do, because on a board as busy as this one, for example, there would be so many posts in the moderation queue at any one time, none of them would be getting read properly before publication.

On the subject of libel, no, sadly the site T&Cs do not absolve the site owners from claims of libel. The poster may be liable, but if they are, then the site owner is also. However, this can be mitigated by dealing with complaints of libel promptly, removing objectionable content quickly and offering the complainant a right of reply, if appropriate.