Be careful what you say on forums, eh? Still, it is the UK!!
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/s ... 01,00.html
libel case against forum board member successful
"That is when it started getting out of control. I was called a lard brain and a sex offender and my wife was called a prostitute," Mr Smith said.
Just wonder what Mr Glitter will do when he read some of the comments on this board? Or what about Mr. Toxin? LOL.
We can write but not hide. Think we know that. Maybe this is a reminder to Lev and mods? From time to time they have to ban somebody who flips out, or can't behave. If they do their job properly this could be stopped - before you bring this into the court.
Just wonder what Mr Glitter will do when he read some of the comments on this board? Or what about Mr. Toxin? LOL.
We can write but not hide. Think we know that. Maybe this is a reminder to Lev and mods? From time to time they have to ban somebody who flips out, or can't behave. If they do their job properly this could be stopped - before you bring this into the court.
I intend to live forever - so far so good.
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Guess
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I have had many thoughts about this topic myself.
To draw a line between free speech and slander/libel is impossible or at best could never be agreed between two parties.
There is a parallel in communication. If I write a story for a major daily publication stating that a certain person is a pedophile, if they can prove otherwise I will be sued and made to pay damages. Obviously, as the accusations were made on a publicly available publication I would be guilty. If I was dozing off to sleep and happened to mention the same thing to my wife then would I be guilty. Also if I wrote the accusation on my PC which was later stolen and made public, would I be guilty.
In the world of corporate law, disclaimers are the way round the problem. There are certain statements that if attached to a document can protect you against direct litigation.
As a salesman, by writing to a customer and stating that the goods that my competitor is trying to sell are not suitable and then I put "Commercial in Confidence" at the bottom of the document it guarantees that the information goes no further than my client and In would be effectively immune from prosecution even if the statement were not true.
Surely in the world of forums and chat rooms I would have thought that having to be a member more or less constrains the readers to private discussion and infers confidentiality.
It seems though that, in the rapidly advancing Big Brother environment, in which the UK is easily the world leader, it has been deemed to be libelous to make a defamatory statement on a chat room that can not be proven.
What next? Will every bar and restaurant be fitted with microphones so that conversations can be overheard and any potentially libelous statements recorded for future litigation purposes. Constriction of human communication could have the effect of retarding the development of the human race. Every political, social and technical advancement made by man would have at sometime involved a statement that others might see as libelous.
I agree that certain subversive elements, drug dealers, thieves and sexual deviants need to be monitored in order to constrain them. These are a minority however. When it gets to the situation where the majority of the population is under scrutiny, then our mere freedom of speech, boasted in so many countries, will be lost forever.
This is a worrying trend. We could end up in a world with 25% of the population suing another 25% supported by the remaining 50% who would be lawyers.
My belief is that most of the litigation cases heard in the UK at least serve only one purpose. That is to keep a large number of incompetents that are not capable of producing anything, have no business skills and are not prepared to do any physical work, in a highly paid job.
Another worrying thing about this trend is that if someone had written on a forum that Gary Glitter was a pedophile before he was first convicted the writer could have been liable for libel proceedings by the Glam Wanker and probably have lost the case.
Any lawyers out there wish to comment?
To draw a line between free speech and slander/libel is impossible or at best could never be agreed between two parties.
There is a parallel in communication. If I write a story for a major daily publication stating that a certain person is a pedophile, if they can prove otherwise I will be sued and made to pay damages. Obviously, as the accusations were made on a publicly available publication I would be guilty. If I was dozing off to sleep and happened to mention the same thing to my wife then would I be guilty. Also if I wrote the accusation on my PC which was later stolen and made public, would I be guilty.
In the world of corporate law, disclaimers are the way round the problem. There are certain statements that if attached to a document can protect you against direct litigation.
As a salesman, by writing to a customer and stating that the goods that my competitor is trying to sell are not suitable and then I put "Commercial in Confidence" at the bottom of the document it guarantees that the information goes no further than my client and In would be effectively immune from prosecution even if the statement were not true.
Surely in the world of forums and chat rooms I would have thought that having to be a member more or less constrains the readers to private discussion and infers confidentiality.
It seems though that, in the rapidly advancing Big Brother environment, in which the UK is easily the world leader, it has been deemed to be libelous to make a defamatory statement on a chat room that can not be proven.
What next? Will every bar and restaurant be fitted with microphones so that conversations can be overheard and any potentially libelous statements recorded for future litigation purposes. Constriction of human communication could have the effect of retarding the development of the human race. Every political, social and technical advancement made by man would have at sometime involved a statement that others might see as libelous.
I agree that certain subversive elements, drug dealers, thieves and sexual deviants need to be monitored in order to constrain them. These are a minority however. When it gets to the situation where the majority of the population is under scrutiny, then our mere freedom of speech, boasted in so many countries, will be lost forever.
This is a worrying trend. We could end up in a world with 25% of the population suing another 25% supported by the remaining 50% who would be lawyers.
My belief is that most of the litigation cases heard in the UK at least serve only one purpose. That is to keep a large number of incompetents that are not capable of producing anything, have no business skills and are not prepared to do any physical work, in a highly paid job.
Another worrying thing about this trend is that if someone had written on a forum that Gary Glitter was a pedophile before he was first convicted the writer could have been liable for libel proceedings by the Glam Wanker and probably have lost the case.
Any lawyers out there wish to comment?
[color=blue][size=134]Care in the community success story.[/size][/color]
Just a minor thing; you, as libelist, have the onus of the proof. Not the libellée babybanger.Guess wrote: snip,,snip,,,
If I write a story for a major daily publication stating that a certain person is a pedophile, if they can prove otherwise I will be sued and made to pay damages.
snip,,, snip
Any lawyers out there wish to comment?
"There's no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one, to believe that there is such an entity (= deity) and that all observable phenomena, including the cosmological ones... are explicable without the hypothesis; you don't need the assumption."