Who is responsible for blog comments
I was looking through some comments on the CBC News website on a recent story on the cost of mental illness. Anybody who has ever read my blog or knows my blogging history will know that anything related to mental health touches a nerve with me. I have a stake in reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. Full disclosure – I co-organized with Isabella Mori the first-ever Mental Health Camp.
So, my blood boiled when I saw the quality of some of the comments (trivializing mental illness, etc). As I was thinking about it, I questioned the double-standards we seem to have vis-a-vis news outlets. Apparently, as bloggers, we are responsible for the comments left on our site. But shouldn’t be traditional media measured by the same standards? Same as with the discussion on disclosure when freebies are given.
What are your thoughts on this matter? And remember, I moderate ALL comments 
but I’m not responsible for them!
Related posts:
- Ads on my personal blog
- Opening Minds (Mental Health Commission of Canada)
- The Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health
- On the relationship between mainsteam media, social media and academia 1: Mainstream media and social media’s complex relationship
- Blogger couples, local socially responsible entrepreneurs, and other musings
They do moderate letters sent in for publication in their traditional media outlets. But this is the brave new world…
I’m sure CBC as a blog owner is no less responsible in the legal sense than you are as the owner of the blog – so comments that have potentially legal ramifications have to be monitored and moderated.
Isn’t the heart of the brave new world that everyone has the unfettered ability to state their own views? Yes, you can choose to moderate to your taste(s) as blog owner, but there is no law against bad taste.
I don’t see a double standard in this case.
Oh but the moment they started pruning comments, wouldn’t somebody then run and say “cencorship?”
And frankly, I get a sick pleasure reading comments from trolls and voting them down. The comments on the decision to dedicate a lane of the Burrard Bridge for cyclists were also intriguing. I think the way to do with these poisonus people is to let them air their views and expose them to social media. But I’m an optimist.
Here’s how I understand it: if a blog owner leaves all comments to run as is, then there is no liability for, say, libel or false claims; however, the minute one starts to edit/censor comments (which I believe is different than posting or not posting comments), if something slips through that is libelous, for instance, then a real legal hell can break out. At least, in the U.S.
I may not be 100% correct on this, but it was an issue addressed at the Wine Bloggers Conference I attended in Santa Rosa in July this year and that’s how I understood it. My fellow wine lover, blogger, writer (and online mag publisher), David Honig is the lawyer who presented at WBC09. You can follow him on Twitter here: @PalatePress or visit the mag here: http://www.PalatePress.com
Cheers,
Kathleen