I'm about to start a website similar to fmylife.com. Users are gonna create the content, and people are gonna tell stories, and it is possible that names will come up even though I'll try to moderate it. Can someone who was mentioned on the website actually sue me for it? I've seen that websites like ratemyprofessor.com have policies on which they say they won't be responsible for anything users post. Can you guys give me any advice about that?
You can certainly be sued, but depending on your tos and location, you would likely have protection. You need to discuss this with an attorney - moderating some posts, and not others, can increase your potential liability.
He literally means your location, depending on applicable laws in your country. The thing is that as you haven't uploaded the content I would make a disclaimer to your users that anything they upload is owned by them and as a result they are responsible for their content, however you also need to protect yourself with a terms of service, with a solid terms of service, privacy statement, and a way to protect those who get talked about on your pages you should be pretty well off.
he would not be protected against any legal fees...he may not be held responsible, but legal fees still could add up in order for him to defend himself. I would remove any content if you receive some type of notice, and I would surely remove content if it suggests slander in nature... you can say the forum is not responsible all you want, but that will not stop the legal fees from adding up, as you still would have to show up for court in order to defend yourself. The only one advantage of this is that they would have to show up to court in your area, and if they are unwilling to take the stand or appear in court, then it will not go very far, they could have an attorney step in during the process, and they would not need to show up until trial, unless this is a million deal, then I just do not really see this happening. It costs money to hire an attorney, it costs money for them to get to court in your area, hotel, travel, etc...regardless, I would still remove anything that suggests infrignement....and follow up on complaints...
Thanks for the advice. I'm living in the States and most posts will probably be in this area. I'll prob have to weigh if it's gonna be worth it to have to moderate all posts. I wonder if people can sue me before contacting me about some post. I would have no problems removing something I'm asked about.
Think of it this way, if we have an accident, and you are at fault...I do not have to notify you because I am filing a lawsuit...with a forum, most likely someone will contact you first in order to remove any offensive posts/comments (as said before, there is a high expense rate for atty's and other fees). a neg comment on goat milk will not get you into trouble, but if you say ABC Company sells diseased goat milk, then expect trouble, unless you can back up that comment with a official news article, and then it may or may not be true, it is not the first time the news has jumped the gun on untruthful events. there is a high risk taking a forum to court, and if they end of losing, then they could end up paying your legal fees also if you can get money out of them, so chances are very high they would contact you of any problems, but do not hide your abuse email, make it be known on the forum so people can file complaints. if you show real concern on what is posted, then you can advert any sort of action. If you read through the threads in legal, there is lawsuit on a scuba forum...where someone is suing the forum for slander...if he had removed the slander posts, then there would not be much to gone on, but the forum owner did not and is standing up for free speech, his members are paying his legal fees, and he gets a lot of donations...all this could have been avoided if he had removed the posts. however, if you can get your legal fees paid via forum members, it sure makes for one hell of good publicity...
wow! I'll be careful with that. Thanks for the advice. I'll probably have to read all the stories myself to look for names on them.