German forum moderators liable for comments posted

Pleased to hear the forum software will be upgraded to a newer version, but it would be good to know when (some of) the moderators will come out of alpha test, at least as far as a beta version that is usable...

From The Register: German court rules moderators liable for forum comments

I would swear we've had this before, must find that thread about the friggin' Landgericht Hamburg, known to be stupid in laws concerning the internet. They're the ones who decided that you have to put on your website that you don't claim responsibility for external content. As if you could! Idiots.

Lucky that wily old Editor Bob has ensured that he runs everything as a Gmbh so avoiding any potential personal lawsuits that could see him cracking rocks in a german jail until he is 90 years old.

This is German law but I'm aware of a case in the UK of a site that was moderated and some dodgy content reoved within an hour but the mod team still ended up gettig nicked.

Fuck me, Germany inventing a pointless pathetic law! What a fucking surprise. Perhaps they're hoping that they'll avoid another bunch of muslim nutters staging a massive attack on the US from inside their country. Or maybe all these fucking left wing twats sitting around discussing all this "lets nick chatroom moderators, yeah, that'll sort shit out" could have been fired, and somebody hired to try and whip the cocks* in government into line and sort out their ridiculous taxation bullshit, flagging economy, and inefficent behemoth of a failing social system. Nah, fuck all that, let them nick MalcomSpudbury because I wrote that Nazi's are fucking great and I love hitler. Come and get me Merkel, if you can find time to stop flashing your fucking cellulite on the beach, you attention seeking slapper.

*USA has doves and hawks, Kroutland has cocks and pussies. Fact. Don_riina - 2006

That'll be news for EB then...

You wanna switch from espresso to camomille tea DonR mate!

Sorry I knew that - was my rather weak attempt at humour.

Be interesting to see what extent they'd apply that - is it really moderators? So would Bob, Malc, Poots, Gen, Sarabyrd et al all go to prison then if I started posting libelous comments?

As I think I said previously, I thought the Pit was getting a wee bit near the knuckle in that respect.

Probably only Editor Bob that would be liable, since he's the actual owner of the site. The rest of us aren't employees - we're doing it voluntarily - so I don't know if we'd be liable for anything.

Would it matter? So long as they get an internet connection in their cell. I know that there is internet access in the library at the KVA Stadelheim as I get emails from an old friend there.

Without getting too much into specific Jimbo, that's how it worked out in the case in the UK I know about.
Plod turned up at VOLUNTEER moderators place of work and nicked them! That wasn't libel though.

EB has got a certain James Bond look about him in that black & white

We can't have comments like that. Revised version:

What, with every Packet of cornflakes!

"Aiding and abetting" isn't necessarilly a paid job...

NO MODERATION WITHOUT REPESENTATION

kill 'em all and hang 'em high as a warning.

Interesting - so it's not the moderators as such, but rather the owner of the site, who should have hired moderators. I suppose a site owner could counter-sue a moderator in his employ for negligence or some kind of breach... These things open a whole can of worms. Of course an individual can libel somebody on the interspazz on the assumption that he is identifiable by his nickname - I'm pretty sure that most TT'ers would be liable themselves, rather than the website...quite where you are with 2nd user names I don't know.

The whole field is up in the air right now.

Bloody good that this forum doesn't contain any content that might piss off any sausage-eating-square-headed-petty-minded krauts then huh!

("You started it" "No we didn't" "Yes you did, you invaded Poland")

As someone is is pretty sqaure headed, loves sausage and is very petty minded, it's a good job I'm not a kraut (or even a Kraut), or I may have been offended...

Related TT topic: British high court internet libel ruling

British libel laws are a nightmare for sysadmins, hosting companies and ISPs. I've seen stuff on other boards which could get a lot of people in a lot of trouble.I confess to not understanding the liability involved in the court case I linked to earlier. It was some kind of incitement but I can't work out exactly what - anyone know?@ MonksTownI'd be interested in more details on the case where mods were arrested if possible. Don't need any names.

But the ruling only applies to websites/forums (fora?) in Germany, right? So all Editor Bob would have to do would be to offshore TT.