Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed

Originally Posted by watzizname

If these sites are short on moderators, then they should have in place the tried and tested measure for assured moderation, and manage all post, before they're allowed to be made public.

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.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Yet as anyone who runs a forum (and I've seen it on three different forums) will tell you that sometimes one kind of troll turns into the other kind of troll (complete with violence and/or death threats) when you don't play their little game and remove them from the site..

True..

Originally Posted by Chris

The law is carefully worded to set the bar quite high. In legal terms, 'grossly offensive' is a difficult test to meet. We edit stuff on this board all the time but IMO very, very rarely do we have to deal with anything that might fit the description of 'grossly offensive'.

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.

[watzizname]

Originally Posted by Chris

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.

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..

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by watzizname

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..

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.

Originally Posted by watzizname

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..

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.