Ever dealt with legal issues on your communities? (1 Viewer)

[Ravenfreak]

Have you ever had to deal with legal issues when it came to owning a forum? Was it related to copyright infringement or something else? I thankfully never ran into any legal issues with any of my websites, none of them break copyright laws nor engage in anything illegal. I feel like more communities on the dark web dabble in illegal content and often than not they probably run into more legal issues than those communities on the clear web.

 

[Darth Cognus]

Rare copyright claims, GDPR, assorted harassment/death threats and underage users have all run across my desk and I would expect any community with a measure of success or broad age appeal to encounter all of these eventually. Granted much of this has not been forums per se and my more extended experience is with assisting in larger communities ie, not in an ownership role. Indeed I avoid being the legal point person at scale because while I can triage any of these I very much don't enjoy being the one on the hook. If you're more obscure or plain small or have a select, chill community most of these perhaps will never happen.

You'll come across these with a wide or lower leaning age variance, in communities that may encounter copyright type issues (even modding is one sticky subject even if it's less likely to be a legal issue for you per se), and places with high passion/volatility which may go as far as well, illegal behavior. Oh and I've had to smite dox attempts, usually as part of some wider internet grudge. The most intense I've gotten myself into has been reaching out to law enforcement, service providers or schools/the like for the super determined as applicable.

"Dark web" is a vague term for a type of website that is probably obscure, innocuous and not much more likely to have an issue as any other. Of course if it's a site based around illegal activity then yeah, they'll always have to watch their back. Needless to say I don't speak from personal experience there.

 

[Nomad]

My communities are not registered businesses, my communities do not deal with ecommerce. Therefore, I have not faced any legal issues.

 

[Tracy]

My communities are not registered businesses, my communities do not deal with ecommerce. Therefore, I have not faced any legal issues.

It can happen without either one being present.
Someone upload copyrighted material and it gets reported... legal issue.
Somebody uses your site to co-ordinate a violation of law.... legal issue.
Somebody uploads child porn to your site.... legal issue.

It is something as an admin one has to be cognizant of. It is real easy for someone who wants to cause trouble for a site to do stuff like this and if you don't catch it, it can come back and bite you, especially if you ignore it.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

I've occasionally got a DMCA Takedown notice. We will investigate and hide the post and notifiy the member. If the member believes he had a right to that image we put it back up and have him send a counter-notice, and then step back and let the two of them duke it out, lol

 

[Sinistra]

Not recently but when I started an anime community I got a few copyright claims from an anime studio saying my custom mascot for my community at the time resembled one of their character designs. This was when I first got into anime so I didn't know lol So I had to redesign my mascot for my community.

 

[synpastel]

I've worked with a lot of sex workers and writers who write on 18+ adult theme boards (like BDSM, fetish, kink theme). This is the biggest potential legal headache because on your end as an admin, you can only do so much to help ensure that everyone is 18+ (or 21+ if that's your chosen age minimum).

The problem with these "adult only" boards is that if you ask for some kind of ID to verify user age, many people will refuse to join because they're not comfortable giving out that kind of personal info (just look at all the anti-porn age-verification laws going on now and how specifically PH's userbase/views tanked after they started complying with these laws). So really you need an honor system with the "I comply with the rule that I am of legal age to view and use this site". Unless we catch you in say discord for the site saying you're a minor/underage, we really have to go off that.

 

[Cory]

Using JavaScript to impersonate the staff members in a chatroom originally built with JavaScript is the closest thing I can remember to something along the lines of legality, perhaps.

I've considerably done something illegal on a message board once when I was angry/upset, badly mentally ill, and suffering from trauma. I'd rather not go into specific details. It was well over a decade ago.

 

[Jason]

No, but in regard to my drumming forum, I've been worried about copyright. Myself, I don't copy other people's work outright, as far as I know.