Hi Nancy and Ryan..I hope you don't mind if I add my comments here about this. When I was looking around to start up a message board for the adults, I must admit I did look long and hard at the set up here to try and learn from the mistakes mainly..(sorry!) I personally think that there will always be problems, to a certain extent, in keeping a balance between free speech and maintaining a safe environment for people to come to and post on ANY messageboard.
I did consider the problems of defamation and researched all the legal possibilities and pitfalls involved but came to the conclusion pretty quickly that it was highly unlikely that anyone would sue another for defamation, or an ISP or message board host for the odd defamatory comment(s)....for a start, as I understand it, in the U.S. it is up to the plaintiff to prove that the posting or whatever caused him/her real damage, loss of earnings, reputation etc etc before they would stand a chance of winning. It's the other way round in the U.K; here it is up to the defendant to prove his defamatory comments were
actually true.
In either case, as far as I know, message board hosts etc ARE treated as 'publishers' of all material on the boards because they 'provide a means for the dissemination of information' and could be held liable but again, as I understand it, the ISP or host is not likely to be sued unless the defamation was serious like the one involving AOL and someone who used one of their bulletin boards to spread around some pretty nasty rumours about an individual after the Oklahoma bombing. (Zeran v AOL [1997] I think was the case) AOL won this one.
There have been several high profile cases since then that have been won by the plaintiff, but just as many won by the defendant. Each state (and country) seems to have such different rules that to be honest, I think the law regarding the Internet and free speech is in such a mess that it is impossible to know for certain if you (as a messageboard host) could be sued even if you were as big as AOL or as small as the Iraqi tourism messageboard. (sorry..bad taste!) My personal attitude to it is the same as the bloke who said "If someone insulted you in a pub, would you sue the pub owner for housing the defamatory remark?"
So, I reckon it's pretty safe for UBPN and the much smaller messageboard that I adminstrate to have any
'defamatory' messages posted and remaining, but an indivudual who posts such remarks COULD it seems be sued in all cases, but again, as I see it, it is extremely unlikely. It depends how you define 'defamatory.'
It can mean vastly different things to people; personally I think there is quite a bit difference between someone on here saying "in my experience, this Dr. is not too good with nerve injuries.." to saying "Beware! this Dr. is a butcher!" simply because of the emotional turmoil this could produce in someone who has a different experience of the same Dr., but as far as defamation is concerned, something like this last comment should be seen as an emotional outburst posted in the heat of the moment, and nothing more...Assuming that the poster wasn't anonymous, and was fully contactable by the person who was defamed, or the messageboard admins., then in theory everything should be pretty easy to sort out, but the very nature of the internet makes it oh so easy to be anonymous and post anything, anywhere without fear of retribution while at the same time have an
internet 'identity' and it is this anonymity which can make it a whole different ball game.
A message board can only operate and run properly with a large amount of trust on both sides;..trust that the
posters will treat the board and the other users with respect and the dignity that we all have a right to; trust that the boards will not be used as a means to carry on a vendetta..etc; the posters must also be able to trust that the board operators will treat them the same way and not remove or alter posts in such a way that it serves the operators/admins personal views and restricts the right to free speech and expression.
A very difficult balancing act.
Obviously totally inappropriate posts should be removed, but on the board I adminster, everyone is left pretty much just to get on with it. Admittedly we don't have the member base that UBPN have, or the issues some of those members may have, but it only takes two to argue and one to post defamatory posts for all our lurkers to see!
To allow for as much safe freedom of expression as possible, we have put in place several security features on the adult boards; one is that registration is compulsory before people can post.
I can understand the need for people to post here sometimes as 'guest' but this feature is open to abuse and we don't have it, and for the adult injured, I don't believe we need it.
What we do have is the ability for each person to edit his own messages after uploading..this has been very useful; it gives the chance for people to retract anything they have written in haste and maybe regretted later and this way, the whole thread can stay unaltered. As admin, I can also move posts and topics to other forums on the board if we (all the members or the majority of..) agree that it would be beneficial.
Having the use of all these features and more are the reasons why I rejected the type of messageboard used here and went for the one the adults use now. I do believe that these features, and others help me and the other admin to allow the board to pretty much run themselves. Hopefully, it will continue that way for as long as possible...it's been (and still is!) a VERY steep learning curve!
Heres a couple of interesting websites...
http://www.spr-consilio.com/cyberlibel.html
http://www.cyber-rights.org/reports/demon.htm