Website operators facing defamation action over users’ posts can now rely on the new ‘website operator’ defence. To use the defence, the operator must comply with a prescribed process after receiving a notice of complaint about allegedly defamatory material posted online. The defence follows increasing concerns about defamatory digital content posted by website users – […]
Defamation Law Archives - SEQ Legal
Troll hunting: forum abuse and the law
A troll is defined in the Urban Dictionary as “one who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument”. The etymology seems to be disputed. My preferred explanation is that the usage comes – via the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban – from fishing, where […]
10 things you should know about … libel
This short article explains the key points of libel law – those which should be familiar to every webmaster. Webmasters need to know about libel law because material published on a website can give rise to libel claims. (1) What is defamatory? Defamation is all about reputation, and in particular about statements which damage others’ […]
Section 1 of the Defamation Act 1996
User-generated content can be a real headache for website operators. One particular risk associated with such content is defamation; however there is a special defence to libel actions which may assist a website operator who is accused of publishing defamatory content submitted by users. See my most on “Dealing with defamatory posts on your website […]
Dealing with defamatory posts on your website forum or blog
One of the many legal risks facing you as a web publisher comes from the law of libel: as publisher, you may be liable not only for your own writings, but also for the defamatory comments that users make on your website. Identifying defamatory posts How can you identify whether a particular post is defamatory […]
