Website (not poster) found liable for content

[thingamajig]

Here Its about Estonia but was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights - I heard Justine talking about it on Radio 4 earlier, and could mean, for example that MN was legally liable for our posts, unless we were not anonymous.

I thought that was always the case? MN are effectively a "publisher"

well yes... i think this is quite normal. hence the whole swmnbn thingy!

Yes, I thought that both author and publisher could be held culpable.

I know a lot of people think 'chatting' online is like talking in real life, and simply don't realise that it's actually global publication. But I thought that owners of websites particularly ones with high traffic, would know that very well and (like MN) swiftly delete posts that could cause legal problems.

These rules are not thought through properly. Large sites like MN or places like Facebook can't police all posts. It just isn't possible.

In that example the offending material was taken down, but that wasn't good enough. If that was applied to MN this place would have to close down permanently.

That's right BOB, that's the worry, previously if they took down posts that were complained about they had a good chance of not being held to blame. I'm wondering if the current hoohah about banning people and deleting posts is to do with this.

It's always been this way, if a post is brought to their attention and they fail to delete it then they are liable (always have been), same goes for all community led websites with the ability to moderate comments.

Remaining anonymous has its good points but it doesn't prevent untoward posters from bringing a site into disrepute.
Personally I would like to see a system where the poster could be held responsible for anything that's disgusting and illegal.
Sites need good moderation supporting the ethos of the site and that moderation to be effective has to be punctual.