Australia | Civil Litigation
Legal Question
Liability for moderating an Internet discussion board
I am a co-owner of a free website that hosts a discussion board. There is no charge for using it, but particiants must agree to our rules and register. The main rule is against incivility toward other participants. We have an Australian member, who is a published author, that has violated this rule several times, and we finally gave her a two-week suspension. Without asking further questions or appealing the decision she writes: ''Please note that I will have to take legal steps should you decide to 'try' me in secret.'' She does not make her meaning any clearer than this, but the threat of ''legal steps'' gives us pause, and we'd like to know if we are actually in any danger of any possible litigation. We have not discussed her publicly by name or otherwise, nor have we discussed the incident with others. Though pressed by other members of the board, we have not given any explanation on the incident, nor do we intend to. We are divided amongst ourselves as to whether or not to inform the offender why we took the action we did, but we don't want to make our situation worse. If anyone can help, by all means--we'd love to hear it.
Thank you!
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