Forums are an "especially dangerous feature" of websites, according to a ruling published last week by a Hamburg district court. Heise Online says it has been found liable for content that appeared on forums, despite the content being removed on request.
Heise ran an article that criticised the business practices of a Munich company called Universal Boards. Some participants in its accompanying forum appear to have encouraged as many people as possible to download a file as often as possible from Universal Boards to disrupt its servers. The company sent a warning to Heise to refrain from "actively disseminating" these reader comments.
Universal Boards went to court and obtained what Heise called a temporary restraining order – presumably to prevent similar postings in future. Heise says the court did not believe its argument that pre-vetting more than 200,000 comments per month would be an unreasonable burden.
Heise plans to appeal the ruling. Its legal adviser, Joerh Heirdich, said: "Moderation of user comments would mean the end of the fledgling forum culture in Germany."
OUT-LAW has not had sight of the ruling, but the general guidance for operators in the UK is to decide whether to moderate or not moderate a forum. Either approach is acceptable but each carries some risk. With a moderated forum, the moderator can become liable for content that appears online. With an unmoderated forum, there must be a facility for requesting the removal of content and such requests must be dealt with promptly. Similar rules should apply in Germany since both countries have implemented the EU's E-commerce Directive which contains these protections.
