We can't give out legal advice in the forums for obvious reasons. You'll get the best advice on that from your attorney.

I'm not asking for legal advise just a general understanding of what guidelines there might be...

Shouldn't your first step be to read the Defamation Act [opsi.gov.uk]? There is an amendment specifically for protecting you as an online publisher, it may be relevant. See the Electronic Commerce (E.C. Directive) Regulations 2002.

Once you've read them through, you'll find money spent on a lawyer to be much more cost effective.

Of course Hugh may not be in the UK, which makes finding a lawyer competent in that field expensive and problematic.

I would say to use your common sense and remove the content unless you're sure you're right. Are you really anxious to make a stand over this?

Beyond that, the only thing I would add is that Britain is a very bad place to be sued for that sort of thing. A lot of media outlets get sued for publishing statements which everyone basically knows to be true, but that part doesn't matter.

The thread deserved to be removed and has been but the letter turns out to have been from a troll (the author of the original post) trying to cause trouble...

Interestingly though I would like to know about the cross national aspect of problems like these since the letter was from the UK, my server's hosted in the US and I live on the continent...

Interesting that it was the 'offender' who is claiming the defamation. Perhaps he regretted posting it and wanted to be absolutely sure that you'd remove it (and subsequent posts in the thread which may clearly demonstrate the defamatory effectiveness of the post) to avoid he himself being the subject of defamation?

Or, alternatively, the allegedly defamed party may have contacted him directly to claim defamation and he is trying to 'pass the buck' to you in this way.

vvv,

Thanks for the link to the defamation act...

Hugh

Hugh,

that's true. Under UK libel law publishers are responsible and liable for what's posted on their websites. There hasn't yet been a successful case against a webmaster, but that doesn't mean that there can't be. Either way, it's very expensive to prepare a defence and in the UK there's no legal aid available for libel cases.

Here's an article [archive.bcs.org] which is mainly talking about employees and companies, but there is a paragraph about the defamation act with respect to hosts/web masters.

Also check out this article [spr-consilio.com] about the most famous UK case where the ISP didn't act.

and there's more... [dba-oracle.com]

Also look at the first post here [blatchat.com] for one club's interpretation and for further links.