Legal issues regarding forums?

[greenfocus]

Hi guys, I’m new here. I’m looking for information regarding the legal issues surrounding website forums. Particularly, what legal bounds are on admins/mods when it comes to what is and is not allowed, censorship, flaming, harassment, etc. So far, digging through search engines looking for ‘forum’ and ‘legal issues’ has provided me with everything except what I want. Does anyone here have links to topics/articles concerning this subject? Thanks in advance. Hopefully I can contribute back with additional findings!

[Taylor Hewitt]

It's really up to what your host allows and what falls within the laws of whichever country you currently reside in.

[greenfocus]

I see. So there isn't much out there pertaining specifically to forums but mainly rules set forth by those who own the server and whatever set of laws web forums would falls into for local/national government?

[Taylor Hewitt]

Exactly. For instance, I can host hardcore pornography on my server because it's legal in the us and that's where the server is. It's still illegal for like a 13 year old to view it or to view it in say India. That's illegal there but I don't get in trouble, the person viewing it would.

[greenfocus]

Got you. So in this instance, if our server is stateside and we operate out of Canada, we are obligated to follow the laws in the respective areas regarding free speech, harassment, and whatever possible "destruction/interference of evidence" there could be in managing a forum and its contents (should something ever proceed to actual legal measures).

[Taylor Hewitt]

Yeah I would imagine that's the case.