Good point.
As I understand it the UK libel laws are a bit outdated and in need of some revision.
Hence our policy of pulling a post on complaint even if the post may be true. It isn't worth the cost of a legal battle.
e.g. Demon internet vs Laurence Godfrey (2000). Awarded £15K + £250K legal costs.
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Quote from BBC News :
Reasonable care
Under English law ISPs are not held to have been the publishers of defamatory material providing they satisfy two criteria.
They must prove they took reasonable care to ensure such material was not published, and once alerted to a problem, took steps to resolve it.
Dr Godfrey's action against Demon related to a message posted in 1997 on soc.culture.thai, purportedly coming from him and containing damaging allegations of a personal nature.
He said he asked Demon to remove the message but the ISP refused. The message was copied to its servers around the world and many others containing newsgroup messages.
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Original here: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/695596.stm
Google "demon internet libel" for other takes.
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