It's a civil tort that is interpreted radically differently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Most of the libel cases in the UK or Canada, for example, would never succeed in the US because of differences in the legislation.
Interesting question, though...who would one direct the lawsuit to? The website? - Probably not, if it is hosted in the US (section 230 and all that). The individual poster, subpoena-ing the records of the website to identify that person? The moderators who fail to remove it? And which law would apply - the one in the country where the website is hosted, the one where the poster resides, or the one where the libeled person resides?
I'll have to see if I can finagle a lunch with someone who has some internet law experience...
Risker
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/30/07, Sheldon Rampton sheldon@prwatch.org wrote:
Someone who commits libel or stalking can be taken to court and convicted, fined, even jailed. If Wikipedia Review is committing those sorts of crimes, the victims can pursue legal remedies and get a court judgment so that we have a basis for common agreement that WR's actions do indeed reach the level of criminality that those terms imply. Once someone has won a court judgment showing that WR has engaged in illegal harassment, I would accept a policy saying that Wikipedia should ban all links to websites whose owners have been convicted of criminal harassment against Wikipedians.
But only criminal harassment? Libel wouldn't be enough?
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