Can a forum be sued for allowing people to talk about their bad experiences about a company? And if someone sells items within the forum, whos responsible?
Not a 100% sure on this but I believe if you have moderation on the forum *that* could make you responsible for not removing content, but if you don't have moderation then you are fine. Didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Not in my opinion no. The only possible way a forum could be sued in such a situation would be if the information is defamatory and the forum owner refuses to remove it. If a forum could be sued for allowing people to post bad experiences then, theoretically, Digital Point and Web Hosting Talk should have been sued for millions of dollars. But they haven't. And even if someone tries to sue a forum for such a reason, the forum owner could simply use the First Amendment within the United States Constitution, which allows for the "Freedom of Speech". So therefor, unless the information is defamatory like a stated before, the forum, or forum owner can NOT be sued for allowing the discussion of bad experiences with a company.
Of course a forum can be sued. Whether or not they will be held liable is something else - but there is still the cost of defending yourself in the suit. "Free Speech" does not mean you can post anything you want without consequences. There are many "libel" suits where posters have been forced to pay monetary and punitive damages. Even "opinions" can be libel per se in certain circumstances.
If the information is factual, no. If the information is fake, yes. Always ask the forum to take the post down if it's a lie first.
You can be sued regardless of if it was a fact or not. Moderating posts can have certain liability consequences - i.e. if you remove some for being a "lie" is that an endorsement that they others are truthful? That is why forums like yahoo do not moderate posts unless the post is a violation of their tos. A forum that removes every post the minute someone objects wouldn't be very successful in my opinion. An forum generally has a lot of protection, but that doesn't mean you can't be sued. If I was going to do such a forum, I would form a legal entity that gives me personal asset protection and consult with an attorney on the liability laws where you are located in/where the forum will be hosted.
and so if those forum members tell the truth about their bad experiences, will the forum owner be liable?
I think there is not much difference between forum and any other site. You need to send the letter to the owner with the request of removal of the content, which is wrong or misleading in your opinion. If the owner refuses to remove, he takes the responsibility for the further actions.
And how is the forum owner supposed to determine if they are telling the truth? Forums have a lot of protection, and generally they will only remove posts that didn't violate their tos with a court order. Most litigation would involve the actual poster, and a site can be forced to turn over registration and ip information (with a court order) but there is nothing a forum owner (or a site owner) can do to prevent the possibility of being included in a lawsuit. Being sued does not mean they will win, it just means that you are going to have to spend money to defend yourself. Anytime you are talking about the reputation of a company, it puts you in a higher risk category as many have the financial deep pockets to bring legal action.
Anybody can be sued but if they if they win or not is another story. The Craigs List decision is a good precedent stating that site owners and hosts are not responsible for the content that members post but the posters themselves are responsible. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...igslist-not-liable-for-discriminatory-ads.ars Recently in Canada a lady was sued for remarks about a dog breeder that she made online. She was sued and she lost. The site itself was not sued.
what if the forum states about this is the disclaimer? must be hard for the company to sue a forum when they don't know who are the people behind the forumboard. and its up to them to find out i guess.
A disclaimer doesn't protect you from being sued. Finding out who owns a forum isn't that hard. They get a court order to unmask privacy protection, force your host to disclose payment information, hand over IP addresses of owners (they can then go to your ISP), etc. Providing false whois information is cause to have your domain terminated - but since you can't use cash to buy your domain and hosting, there is always a trail back to you or someone that knows who you are.
A forum can be sued, since they're providing a place where people can post these illegal things their for supporting in whatever it is. Forums will most likely have the opportunity to remove it, most likely a strongly worded letter/email requesting that they remove all the illegal content from the website asap. I actually have a forum where users post illegal content, I actually tell them they're not allowed to post it and have nobody in my staff that actually moderates the section it's posted in. I may still be claimed liable, but if it comes down to it then I'll just remove the posts. So far Microsoft have taken no action against me, just some fags that think they're pro. But they didn't really get anywhere except making me move hosts. You'll be fine if you're smart enough about it. Also I have a disclaimer, which I setup stating that it's a legal contract that you have to agree to upon registration to the forum. If you want to see any sections which may potentially contain illegal things you'll need to agree to it. It states that the forum is a private forum and only users that are directly referred by the owner (me) are allowed to register. As well as a lot more terms which somebody wrote for me.