Comments on: Slander In Comments – What are the Legalities?

By: Betrayed byCEO

Betrayed byCEO — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 04:04:38 +0000

The CEO of a public company where I work used my computer to leave a comment on the message board for a financial website. There were two comments left, both in the latter part of 2006. In April a comment was added by the CEO (my boss) and she signed my full name to it – first and last name as if I had written the comment. Do I have any recourse? The next day another employee allegedly left another message using HIS full name. I am suspecting that the CEO wrote a comment for him, as she did for me. Any suggestions what I can do?

By: Owner of Ruined Business

Owner of Ruined Business — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:40:04 +0000

I am the former owner of a business that was ruined by a blog site that was set up by the person who sold me a business that had multiple disclosure issues (#1 being that he FORGOT to tell us that he was locked in a legal battle with the city that was trying to shut the operation down because of its location in a residentially zoned community). This person set up a blog site that gave misleading information about my operation, personal information about my family, my small children, made statements indicating that I kept “large amounts of cash” in my home….gave out my home address, etc.etc. To this posting, multiple people who were affected by the closure of the business began posting comment after comment…before I knew it there were over 300+ postings from people who were believing what was being posted. The snowball effect, caused another business I owned to subsequently close. Anyone who types in my name, my business names, etc. would stumble upon this blog site. I have lost over a Million dollars in revenue…. I am struggling to keep another business in the same line of work alive. What can I do to stop it? How can I do some reverse damage control? Am I able to sue the creator of the blog site? Can someone give me some info????

By: ekompute

ekompute — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:39:50 +0000

The internet really do need a policing system. Apart from libels and slanders, there are also too many scams, and dishonest advertising, with many advertisers making empty promises which they never do intend to honour. Purchasers are at their mercy because they don’t know what they are buying until after they pay for the products. And those money-back guarantees are more often than not just a ploy. How many people actually get their money back?

By: HaveBeenSlandered

HaveBeenSlandered — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:09:51 +0000

I am interested in everyone’s opinion’s here. I have recently had a bad experience in a share house where we were very poorly suited to live together and I moved out. A few days later one of the housemates posted a blog about me and how awful I was to live with and in general. These comments come up with a simple google search as I have a very unique name. Obviously I do not want this and have asked for it to be removed, but to no avail. What are my options??

By: Thor Schrock

Thor Schrock — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:22:09 +0000

As a principal in this case I can tell you that the plantiff’s actions are not merely the result of a single comment. The PLantiff is claiming that the alleged comment that was posted under my name on Shoemoney’s blog was a violation of a settlement we had agreed to in a previous lawsuit where we sued the plantiff for a non-related offense.

That case was settled, and I believe that this new legal action is all about trying to find out who was slamming the plantiff on websites and bloggs all across the Internet.

We have not heard anything on this case since February, and I maintain that undesireable comments about a person or company that can be proven as truthful (which is the highest standard in a libel case) can not be libelous. They are protected First Ammendment Speech.

The plantiff in this case is a decent company who services its customers well. I think this is just a case of a single bruised ego.

I should submit this whole thing to A Chilling Effect and see what happens there with it. Or I could just file for a dismissial since this case seems to be dead in the water after Shoemoney’s deposition anyway.

By: James

James — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 02:35:34 +0000

There was a recent problem with famous Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi here. A comment which jokingly made a reference to ’shooting’ someone led to a police report, and the end result is that the settlement resulted in him having to place a large notice in his comments section telling commenters to be careful of what they write.

By: Maurice

Maurice — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:16:18 +0000

Depends on the country.

Most have some concept of comon carier status for things like phonecompanies other wise the phone compaines could be sued as acessories to crimes.

Problem is if you moderate some comments you can lay your self open to legal attack.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:57:57 +0000

I’ve actually had someone request that I remove comments from one of my sites because he was being slandered on it.. My knee jerk reaction was that I don’t remove comments, but upon cross referencing this person’s comments they were all of no value to the site or topics at hand and were purely out to bad mouth this person, so I wiped them out in a second. People without lives (especially teenagers) can turn anyone’s blog or site into a dumping ground for their personal wastes of time and waste yours in the process.

By: holch

holch — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:19:44 +0000

Just a view weeks ago the German publishing company Heise Verlag had a law suite due to comments in their Forum. It is not really a blog but an IT news site, but hey, there is not much differents (what is a blog anyway? A system to make publishing easier). So this should apply to blogs also.

Party 1 complained about comments in the forums (directly conected with the respective news). Party 2 (heise) said, that they could not check every comment. It went through several levels I think. Conclusion so far: Heise does not have to check every single comment. However, if they are aware of illegal comments they have to check and delete them. This means once they now about the problem, they have to act (e.g. they are informed about the problem).

Well, that is for Germany.

By: Stopblogtrolls

Stopblogtrolls — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 11:45:10 +0000

I know of a prolific commenter who is the subject of a legal investigation who has repeatedly libelled and slandered people. Comments are for making a point about a post – it’s not for people to flame and use it as a way to bully the author or other readers and when people then go to the trouble of putting slander up (or libel) it’s something that people will want to defend. Take for instance what has happened in this case where a prospective employer has done an internet search and come up with some of the crap that has been spouted by the offender. This person has also put up racist messages and accused someone of a crime that they most definitely haven’t committed. I do agree that people shouldn’t be racing around to sue but if it impacts on someone’s reputation and has the ability to complicate matters of employment, I can understand.

By: Eduardo Maio

Eduardo Maio — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 18:05:42 +0000

Just asking, couldn’t this be a link baiting strategy?

Linkbait 101:
1. Sue Google / M$ or Yahoo
2. Get sued from Google
3. Let your blog friends sue each other and testify.

Ok, I know, I’m just beeing paranoid, Jeremy doesn’t need that kind of “promotion” but it’s a strange coincidence.

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 16:44:20 +0000

There was something similar that happened to Slashdot. A commentor wrote something about a Microsoft trade secret (Or something to that effect), and the guys behind Slashdot ended up getting a cease-and-desist letter. They eventually removed the comment. However, I'm sure this was quite sometime ago. On my blog, I clearly state that we don't take any responsibility for what commentors post, and I've never had any problems! -Alex

By: Teresa

Teresa — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 16:24:19 +0000

Wow, I would say that this revolves around the fact that some people have absolutely no life outside of the internet and if someone insults them, it’s as if their life has gone awry. I’ve been in positions on the internet where one person has said something rather crass and off colour, but I’ve NEVER felt the need to sue this person. Truth is, this person ‘might’ get away with it as well since what was said had actually been logged and documented. It’s good news in a way, since maybe now the so-called “forum trolls” might calm down and stop slandering. It’s bad new in many ways because you just might not be able to say ‘anything’ since to some, this might be a great way to go and sue people for money. Just hope this doesn’t spark an epidemic of sorts..

By: sarang gaikwad

sarang gaikwad — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 11:13:44 +0000

In India we had a case where, a CEO of an auction site was arrested for some one putting porn on the website for sale. The company protested that they were selling thousands of goods and they were often posted without the company being aware of what was being put up for sale.

The prosecution (Government) argued that it is upto the company to do due deligence and ensure the company doesn’t allow laws of the country to be broken. I think its a sensible argument.

So looking at it from THAT perspective, a blog owner is responsible for whatever goes on the Blog. Who knows, tomorrow some terrorists might decide to put up radical messages on problogger, or msgs that attack (say) the USA govt, knowing that it will be read by an audience across the world. Is problogger then responsible for ensuring the removal of such content deligently or not? Or should you ensure that such comments are not posted in the first place? I think the latter is more sensible, since obviously otherwise, you will have to continously monitor comments on a ‘live’ basis.

I have allowed free comments on my blog, but then my blog has a readership of a few hundred a week and not thousands a day, like you.

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:13:23 +0000

I haven’t seen it in the comments so far but there is a high profile case that occasionally makes the news headlines in Australia (I first saw it in the Australian newspaper) about the CEO of Sharman Networks, the parent company of Kazaa, suing a Canadian blogger and four anonymous commenters for defamatory comments. The four anonymous parties were listed in the court papers as John Doe, Jane Roe, Richard Roe, and Jane Roe!

It has a long story behind it that you can find at the site being sued, p2pnet.net. One of the quotes from this site:
“Under current Canadian law, intermediaries can face potential liability for failing to remove allegedly defamatory content once they receive notification of such a claim, even without court oversight.”
and:
“the United States enacted a law 10 years ago that provides broad immunity for intermediaries that host third-party content”

By: Slander In Comments - What are the Legalities? at Personal Finance

Slander In Comments - What are the Legalities? at Personal Finance — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 06:48:24 +0000

[...] Slander In Comments – What are the Legalities? [...]

By: Piper Kinison

Piper Kinison — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 02:12:42 +0000

Tucker Max (tuckermax dot com) was sued over comments left on his message board. Read the details (and hysterical official decision) here : http://messageboard.tuckermax.com/showthread.php?t=9316

By: Darnell Clayton

Darnell Clayton — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:11:07 +0000

Actually, putting up a disclaimer is a wise thing to do.

Many moons ago someone (a human political spammer) posted an item on one of my blogs on a post that was several months old. Aparently he wanted his comment removed, as it refered to someone in the office where he worked at and mentioned I could get sued if I didn’t (that was one of those “not happy blogger days”).

I have since put up a comment disclaimer, as I do not have time (nor do I want to spend the money) for a court and lawyer.

Moral of the story: Have a disclaimer if you live in the western hemisphere as people are sue happy here.

By: jimmy

jimmy — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 20:20:18 +0000

This problogger site is very informative. I like this site very much. Darren is doing a very good job, to help others who dont know blogging. Great work darren.

By: Pewari Naan

Pewari Naan — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 18:47:34 +0000

Tom Bailey: a disclaimer is a good idea, except that Mumsnet.com has a disclaimer and it doesn’t seem to have helped them one little bit. As I understand it, the law in the US protects third party publishers a little bit better than in the UK. UK libel laws need a major overhaul…