RIVALS message board closed

SCULLY

I've noticed this morning that all the RIVALS soccer messages boards have been closed, due to fear of possible legal action over the current soccer rape allegations. In Rivals, each club has it's own dedicated message board, and it was felt that it was too difficult to moderate all of these successfully , so they have suspended them all, untill the current furore has died down - intersting!

qwertyup

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It is a similar situation with the BBC message boards. Now all posts must be approved by a moderator before they will appear.

I accept the issue of slander and libel, but it is interesting that many of the message boards have no option but to stop their services, out of legal fears, when you or I could discuss the matter in person and name names with no form of reprocussion.

I just find it odd how freedom of speech in the truest sense is applicable only to private discourse, and not public discussion.

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Hairy Homer

Originally posted by qwertyup
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t it is interesting that many of the message boards have no option but to stop their services, out of legal fears, when you or I could discuss the matter in person and name names with no form of reprocussion.

I just find it odd how freedom of speech in the truest sense is applicable only to private discourse, and not public discussion.

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Depends how loud you talk. If you shout loud enough to be heard by several people then you could be done for slander, which is just like libel except the allegations are not written down.

Libel, like football, is a funny old game, though really only if you're a lawyer.

In the print media, where the various links in the chain are well established, legal responsibility has been fairly clearly assigned. If a publication prints something defamatory about somebody the author, editor, publisher, printer and distributor are all liable. Even though the printer (usually nowadays) and distributor have NOTHING to do with the content of the publication, they are nevertheless liable.

In practice, publishers usually indemnify their printers and distributors for any liability they may encounter. But the rules stand, and printers/distributors can be liable if they don't do all in their power to prevent a libel being spread or repeated. eg by not reacting quickly enough to an injunction taken out against a publication that has already been printed but might contain something defamatory.

On the Web, because legal developments tend to lag technical ones quite considerably, the same links in the chain have not been identified to the same degree, and legal responsibilities have not been clearly assigned. Still, the principle that those involved in making information available to a potentially wide audience could have similar liabilities to those in the print food chain could be argued. It's quite understandable if the lads (lassies?) who run boards are reluctant to be at the wrong end of a test case.

Jesus what a rant. I'll have to charge you more than 2 cents for that one.

Ludo

Soccernet message boards gone also...

tHE vAGGABOND

Were just deleting any post on the subject on the CM message boards.

and heres me thinking we were over reacting here last night