Hi all This is a quick message regarding the legalities of a forum as a forum administrator. Can my company be held responsible for things that are posted on my forum? Can I be responsible? What are the requirements regarding terms and conditions? Would it stand up in court if it ever comes to this? The whole point of this is as to not have to moderate the whole forum.. I would appreciate if you have any links to articles or anything else relating to this.
Yes you can. "If you arent able to moderate a forum, then you shouldnt have one." I think thats a pretty accurate quote from some case that went to court where someone was claiming against a webmaster for something. I cant remmeber it was several years ago.
I heard that forums can't be considered responsible, and that they have no obligation to censor the opinions of individual people. I remember reading in the quotes of the judgment for paypalsucks.com, that they were not responsible for the individual opinions that their posters chose to present. That said, you might be responsible for any type of violent threats made on your forum, and you would have to monitor it for any dangerous/illegal activity. Also, you really need to take a bit of time to be active in your own forum and moderate the basic posts of your forum to make sure that it isn't just full of spam.