Am I responsible for the actions of my members and/or guests?

by Jeff S. Fri 1 Jan - 23:43

So I have a genuine concern about whether I am held responsible for my members and guests actions? I do have rules for the users to abide by the Forumotion TOS and the common decency policy, however, if there was a user to post pornography or hateful content that violates the TOS, would I have to suffer to ramifications for this? Is there a possibility for me to lose my forum over a troll's behavior?

Thanks in advance,

-Jeff

by **brandon_g** Sat 2 Jan - 0:59

Hello,

The unfornate answer to your question is yes. If any user on your site posts something or pornography or anything else that violates the TOU, while you personally would not be legally responsible for it, as you did not post it, your forum can be removed for it. If such is posted and reported to you, it is your responsbility as founder to take action and delete the posts and/or take any other action to ensure that the user(s) do not post it again. While you can not control what people post, if you get a report of something like this, you need to take action and remove it. To get to the point, the unfornate answer I must give you to your question is: Yes, it is the responsblity of the founder to ensure his/her forum remains in compliance with the TOS of forumotion.

-Brandon

by Jeff S. Sat 2 Jan - 1:40

brandon_g wrote:Hello,

The unfornate answer to your question is yes. If any user on your site posts something or pornography or anything else that violates the TOU, while you personally would be legally responsible for it, as you did not post it, your forum can be removed for it. If such is posted and reported to you, it is your responsbility as founder to take action and delete the posts and/or take any other action to ensure that the user(s) do not post it again. While you can not control what people post, if you get a report of something like this, you need to take action and remove it. To get to the point, the unfornate answer I must give you to your question is: Yes, it is the responsblity of the founder to ensure his/her forum remains in compliance with the TOS of forumotion.

-Brandon

Thanks a lot Brandon. So as long as I take action and remove the posts, my forum will not be immediately removed right? Sorry for the question load. I just have worked very hard on my message board and would hate to see it removed.

by **brandon_g** Sat 2 Jan - 2:34

Yes, so long as immediate action is taken and all posts containing content violating the TOS is deleted, your forum should be fine. The only way a forum can really be possibly taken down is if it were reported via the litigation tool, now even if someone reported your forum via that tool before you got the chance to remove it, due to the sheer number of reports the team recieves, it could take a few days to a few weeks for them to view the report, view your forum and act on it. If the content is already removed by the time they view the report and review your forum to see if it is compliance, then no action should be taken. Wink

-Brandon

by Jeff S. Sat 2 Jan - 2:39

brandon_g wrote:Yes, so long as immediate action is taken and all posts containing content violating the TOS is deleted, your forum should be fine. The only way a forum can really be possibly taken down is if it were reported via the litigation tool, now even if someone reported your forum via that tool before you got the chance to remove it, due to the sheer number of reports the team recieves, it could take a few days to a few weeks for them to view the report, view your forum and act on it. If the content is already removed by the time they view the report and review your forum to see if it is compliance, then no action should be taken.

-Brandon

Ah got it. Thank you very much for all of the help Brandon! Have a good one!