Court Holds Forum Operators Accountable for Site Content

[Aptrgangr]

Germany: Court Holds Forum Operators Accountable for Site Content

Germany's highest court has ruled that Internet operators are responsible for removing libelous comments from their forums -- regardless of from where the content originates.

German Internet forum operators will be required to delete libelous material from their Web sites as soon as they are made aware of them, the German Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday.
"The case undoubtedly has a large practical importance," said Gerda Müller, the Karlsruhe court's vice president. She added that the verdict also applies to sites that allow parties to reply directly to the accusations against them.
The case in question was initiated when the head of an association to fight child pornography was labeled a pedophile twice in an Internet forum dealing with sexual abuse. Though the authors in both cases left the message with pseudonyms, the association's head was able to obtain the name of the author for one entry.
The association's head sued for the removal of the two entries from the forum. The high court's decision to hold both the author and forum's operators responsible for entries overturned a lower court's decision that forced operators to remove forum entries only when they were written anonymously.

Careful screening required
The main point of debate in the case was whether individuals can hold site operators accountable for content posted by third parties, with the defendant's lawyers arguing the sites simply provide a forum for public discussion and cannot control what is said. Lawyers for the plaintiff said that forum operators should be held accountable for messages their forums spread.
The decision will force Internet forum operators to undertake more efforts validate users' identities before allowing them to post comments, Ralf Möbius, an Internet lawyer in Hanover said.
"They will definitely have to check their sites more regularly," he told Die Zeit newspaper. "For a long time the perception was that one could not pursue legal action against the place where wrongdoing occurs. Naturally the operator has to do something about entries in his forum."

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[Ederico]

As far as I can understand, in Malta it is already so according to law but no case has ever been taken on the matter in Courts of Law. That is why I would make sure to put every possible precaution in place to avoid trouble due to indisciplined members. I always noticed, particularly in Maltese forums, that anonymity is practically always a guarantee for forum behavioural problems.

[Kernunnos]

Such principles are good only when running a jail to terrorize unruly inmates. They are instead criminal per se when running a state: penal responsability is personal according to the most basic principle of penal law in any barely decent country. How many forums will cease working or will see their activity stifled for fear of a reprisal? Do the lawmakers have any knowledge of how an internet forum works? Because, if they have it, we must conclude that he purpose of this rule is to stifle any internet dissenting voice.

[Ederico]

Originally Posted by Breha

Such principles are good only when running a jail to terrorize unruly inmates. They are instead criminal per se when running a state: penal responsability is personal according to the most basic principle of penal law in any barely decent country. How many forums will cease working or will see their activity stifled for fear of a reprisal? Do the lawmakers have any knowledge of how an internet forum works? Because, if they have it, we must conclude that he purpose of this rule is to stifle any internet dissenting voice.

More than right. Unfortunately the problem rests in the fact that legislators (or rather the Courts) are considering an Administrator as equal to a newspaper Editor or as someone having a related role. This neglects the nature of an internet forum itself and the impossibility of a decent and constant disciplinary action which would inevitably minimise forum activity in the first place.

I always asserted that rather than a form of communications media, even though it is, the nature of an internet forum is like a bar. Given the nature of discussions in bars one wouldn't pretend that participants in such discussions are equalled to contributors in some newspaper who would eventually be controlled by the editor prior to and not after actual publication. I perfectly know that what is said in bars if often prosecutable, but if that was the case we would have a ridiculous state, and that same state is being transposed for electronic forums. I do believe however that the major problem is lack of self-discipline in the participants of conversations.

Publication, is the moment where incrimination would be considered, at least from how I understood our laws. Vetting each and every post in an electronic forum as though it was a newspaper that will be issued at a later moment is practically impossible or at least impractible.

Unfortunately, this a typical case when the velocity of socio-technological progress is not paralleled by legal adaptation to it. I believe that this is moreso the case, rather than an attempt to silence political opponents. If the latter actually happens, it is because legislators find the lack of adaptation convenient for their political agendas. So it is a case of certain agendas gaining profit from the situation, rather than the situation being created by the same agendas.