This is good information for forum owners

While I agree with your stance, Kyle, markblair, and whoever else...the same thing can be turned right back onto us as well...If the owner of DontDateHimGirl is responsible for what her member's posts and is responsible to make sure that everything posted is true and remove everything else...then we would be obligated to do the same in our respective forums. While we don't have problems like this on such a large scale, it still happens...webmaster forums for example...what do you do when somebody comes in saying "Dont buy from this guy - he's a scammer!"...do you investigate to make sure it is true...do you ignore it....do you just tell them to stop?

Now, maybe DontDateHimGirl is different because they are so welcoming to defamatory comments...but that doesn't mean that our own respective forums dont receive the same thing, just on a much smaller scale.

__________________
...some super-sweet signature

It doesn't sound like they're welcoming to defamatory comments at all. Even if the site "solicits negative information" about men it's not soliciting soliciting defamatory remarks... after all, negative information isn't defamatory if it's true. The problem is, as you correctly point out, that no forum owner, blogger, or webmaster can ever tell if something a third party posts/emails/etc. is 100% true -- the burden is waaaaaaaay too high even for a huge company like AOL (hence why Congress passed Sec. 230 and why the 4th Circuit, 9th Circuit, etc. have very broadly affirmed the statute to grant publisher and distributor immunity to pretty much anyone who republishes something a third party said online).

Of course, if someone was *really* defamed, the victim still has recourse -- he can still sue the person who actually made the defamatory statement. But apparently this particular attorney decided to go after what he perceived as the deeper pocket. Thankfully the law is not on his side, and hopefully never will be on his side.

I said "welcoming to", meaning inviting...meaning visitors are encouraged to...stretch the truth perse, I wasn't suggesting that the owner tells her members to lie. People are much more like to make defamatory comments at DontDateHimGirl and they are to make them here at AF....My point was that it can still happen here at AF and at any other forum for that matter, and we could therefore find ourselves in this exact same position - which is why you have got to hope that the DontDateHimGirl owner doesn't lose this case.

__________________
...some super-sweet signature

On a side note, when I heard about this problem several months ago, they were suing d.d.h.g.com due to the fact they allow anonymoty(sp?) in posts, so women could lie and no one would ever know who they were.

That's where the problem is, what happens when you can't sue an entity whose identity is a mystery? (hey, I *am* a poet!)

__________________
I went to Vegas, and all I got was this Blister. - true story!

And this is the way I look at it too. As forums and other forms of electronic media become equated to their paper counterparts such as digests and newspapers, we will be subject to the same interpretations of the law.

__________________
Pictures and Videos of the Huntsville Car Scene: www.huntsvillecarscene.com

I think the problem here isn't the result of getting sued and losing, but being sued in the first place.

If someone has the right type of attorney, you're going to have to shell out money for your own attorney to prove that you weren't in the wrong. In that case, the only people that win are the attorneys. I've seen this happen before in business, and I'm sure it can happen with online businesses as well.

__________________
Pictures and Videos of the Huntsville Car Scene: www.huntsvillecarscene.com

That's not a problem at all. You can file a John Doe lawsuit against an alias, or even an IP address, and then subpoena the forum's (or the ISP's) records in order to tie the forum alias / IP address / whatever to a real person. This is how the RIAA/MPAA are able to sue people for file sharing based on nothing but an IP address.

Of course, if you don't file the suit until years after the defamatory statement was made, it might be difficult to identify someone because records might not be there anymore. But if you're waiting years to file a libel lawsuit it's likely the statute of limitations would have passed anyway.

Is there any update on this close? I'm sorry for bringing back an old thread, but I really want to know the answer.

__________________
Virtual Pet Sites - Myspace Editors-web games

DontDateHimGirl.com - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

__________________
...some super-sweet signature

these days people are being sued to stupid reasons
so stupid

__________________
Neocrisis.com - Your gaming and anime source