What If I had a forum with a section where you can expose past lovers that cheated on you, stole money, lack of hygiene ect. Something similar to dontdatehimgirl dot com. Could I come under fire for making a section like this or are these people protected through freedom of speech?
You can have that if they tell it in the form of a story without exposing the real people behind the scene and then you can claim its not addressed to any particular person since it wasnt pointing to any particular individual.
Yes, exposing someone's lifestyle may be ok, as long as their personal information (name, contact info, etc.) remains private. I guess that would defeat the purpose of your site though.
You need to be clear in your T&C's that the content of the site is not the opinion of its owner but that of the indiviuals posting etc etc. This is along the same lines as how youtube and other get out of the copyright issues of people uploading illegal content. However you will need to constantly moderate the site for personal information that is posted due to the Data Protection Act. That is the main area that could cause you problems.