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(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/30/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon(a)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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