A blogger recently failed at the High Court in his attempt to sue a commentator on his blog for defamation. The nub of the judge's ruling was that the fact that the blogger left the 'offending' comment on his site for a considerable time, mitigated against the claim that the comments caused 'substantial upset and distress'.
The implication here is clear. If you feel that comments on your website are defamatory, you should remove them asap (common sense really) - this is particularly important if someone else complains that comments on your website are defamatory to themselves.
So while social networking type sites, which allow users to add comments and their own content, are vulnerable to potentially libellous or defamatory material, the risk can be mitigated by careful policing of content and prompt action.
1 comment:
I agree that judicious control be exercised over your blog but less from libel and more from spamming.
There are a lot of clever spammers out there. A couple of years ago blogger.com itself was the victim of automated spam postings which occurred while you were logged in to your blog admin pages.
Libel is a funny thing, but publishing libelous articles about yourself on your own blog is probably a difficult case to win.
Do you have control over what gets published on your website? Yes you do. Case dismissed.
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