If A Site Uses Third-Party Moderators Who Do Something Bad, Does The Site Lose Safe Harbors?
from the that-would-be-bad dept
Last year, we wrote about a rather straightforward case where a nutritional supplement company had sued the operators of the forum bodybuilding.com, because of some unflattering comments posted in the forum. The court quickly tossed out the case on Section 230 grounds, noting that a site is not liable for the actions of its commenters. However, Eric Goldman alerts us to the latest in that case, which is a bit more troubling. After having the case transferred to a different court, the supplement maker used a new argument, claiming that it was false advertising and that since a third-party "moderator" posted one of the messages, the site is now responsible. That's basically how the company tried to get around Section 230.The court, unfortunately, seems to have agreed. While it does note that bodybuilding.com has Section 230 immunity despite having third party moderators, it allows for the possibility that since one of the moderators may have posted one of the messages in question, the moderator could be considered "a representative of the site." This goes against a whole series of case law, which Goldman lists in his post, and could create all sorts of problems for sites that use volunteer or third party moderators. Of course, this was just in response to the motion to dismiss, so the court could come back and say that third party moderators don't make a site liable, but it's worth paying attention to this case. As Goldman notes: "I really can't imagine Web 2.0 succeeding without a robust cadre of site admins and moderators helping self-police an online community."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: false advertising, forums, moderators, safe harbors, section 230, third parties
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Analogies
That's not a great metaphor though. Anyone have a better one?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Are these moderators just upgraded users, or more like employees?
On the other hand, if these 3rd-party moderators are at a comparable level to employees, for instance temp contractors from a job agency, they are fully acting on behalf of the site (by contract), and so the site should also take blame for their mess-ups.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Moderators are affectively unpaid employees
Since they are selected by the Site Owner to "enforce" site rules they are affectively representing the site and site's interests.
Not a difficult arguement, and if the Moderator IS doing something wrong the site owner SHOULD be responsible, and not allowed to hide behind section 230.
Section 230 shouldn't be a global pass for the site owner for the content on the site.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Moderators are affectively unpaid employees
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Moderators are affectively unpaid employees
This will be an interesting case to watch. I'm not sure what way this should go. Initially, common sense tells me that the site should not be responsible for the actions of it's moderators, but I'm not sure that works the way other "volunteer" programs should.
If a company can screen employees well enough to be comfortably responsible for their actions, why not employ the same kind of screening for your moderators? That argument makes sense to me in a lot of cases, but it seems to drop a lot of liability on the sites that could be really misplaced. On the other hand, they are using unpaid moderators to save money, so maybe screening them should just be the cost of business.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
in canada
i warned a site were there was a serious breach of my security the next time would result in a lawsuit. As the site was for many ISPS to host there tech support they can pass the buck so i went right at source.
OF course that makes ya all popular there and they find any reason now to mess with posts i make "off topic removed , when its on topic that sorta crap.
others are scared to make posts, and others still just dont bother going there. YOU cant even openly complain as they remove such posts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wait a sec
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google Ad-Sense Ad-Word Trash
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
figure competitor blog
figure competitor blog
[ link to this | view in chronology ]