Internet forums

[dannyjoseph]

Does anyone know what the 'laws'/rules are for monitoring an internet forum? If something libelous/controversial is posted to your forum, is there a cooling off period etc to remove the article? Or, can items be posted onto a forum via a form which gets Emailed to a moderator for screening (without the poster giving their Email address)?

Thanks

[boobesque]

different forum owners have different setups. some do indeed appear in the admins inbox which has to be added manually by him/her so they are able to screen all messages. others have several moderators so the likelyhood of one being online at any time is quite high. on these forums the messages tend to be posted straight onto the forums, which the moderators can then edit or remove if neccesary. of course, there are some with no screening and no moderation, but these always end up as forums for posting abusive messages to each other.

there are no laws as such regarding contraversial topics. it is up to the admins or mods discretion. if the forum is hosted by a remote webhost then the hosts usually have their own rules which the admin/mods must abide by. failing to do so will result in removal of the website. for instance, a lot of webhosts will not allow any illegal software to be stored on their servers. a lot also will not accept any discussions or links to illegal software. but this is at the webhosts discretion.