Re: Dave Pearson
Ian, it's not my area but I believe you may be mistaken as to the forum. This is why we have moderators. The site may well be viewed as the publisher of what its members choose to publish on it. In that regard, it is arguably no different from a newspaper which publishes what it's journalists (or letter-page contributors) wish to publish. You may argue that the site doesn't have full-time editors or that the cadre of writers is much larger; those are problems for the site to address, not reasons for it to be exempt from libel, race relations or decency laws.
The big difficulty is the trans-national aspect of this and other forums. People may consider themselves defamed or offended wherever in the world they may reside. It is quite possible (and even likely) that the courts in that country may be seized of the matter, and would decide it under the applicable law of that country. These issues are known to have potentially different outcomes in Scotland and England, or California and New York; how much bigger might be the difference in outcome as between Chile and France, or New Zealand and Romania?
In my view, the only sensible approach is to ensure that potentially offensive material is expunged as soon as possible, adn for all forum members to try to avoid giving gratuitous offence - particularly by stereotyping whole classes of people in a negative way.
