FC: The death of unmoderated discussion groups in France?

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

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From: "Benoit Tabaka" <benoit.tabaka@wanadoo.fr>
To: <declan@well.com>
Subject: The death of french unmoderated forums
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 22:40:01 +0200

Declan,

A short piece of news from France. Yesterday, a french lower Court decided
for the first time in Europe that a webmaster is responsible for comments
published by Net surfers on unmoderated forums of its Internet site. This
webmaster was sued for libel.

This ruling sets a precedent whereby the webmaster (thus publisher) of a
website can be held responsible for what is published in an non-moderated
forum. This is the first step to the end for unmoderated online discussion
on french (and perhaps european) websites.

French décision :
http://www.foruminternet.org/documents/jurisprudence/lire.phtml?id=323

Best regards,

Benoît Tabaka
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