Today's guest lecturer was Shane Richmond, Communities Editor for mytelegraph.co.uk, the 'communities' section of the Daily Telegraph's website.
As Shane said, his job title is only partly accurate, as although he's responsible for providing a platform (to use the jargon) for communities to develop, he actually does very little editing. Freedom of expression is a core tenet of the Daily Telegraph's right of centre readership, and therefore undue censorship will not be tolerated! Sub-ing the pages would be impossible with the number of posts received each day (...there are about 30,000 user blogs, and the journalists' blogs and articles attract a further 2,000 comments from the public a day.)
This level of interactivity provides one of the most difficult challenges currently facing media outlets; while on the one hand traffic generates advertising revenue, it also poses the problem of moderation.
One example of this dilemma is bbc.co.uk's old Football Forums, which allowed fans of all teams to discuss whatever was going on at their beloved club. Transfer gossip, injury news, takeover rumours...all in one place.
It provided a place to rant about the players, the management, the owners, Arsenal's latest dirty trick.
But it also provided the perfect place to bait fans of rival teams. Wind up merchants were rife, and brought with them a constant headache for the team of moderators whose job it was to enforce the Forum's rules.
In the end the forums were closed down and replaced with the current 606 message boards. They no longer feature 'Team Boards', only moderators can start threads or conversations, and opening hours are restricted.
The BBC was able to implement measures which were generally unpopular with its users because it doesn't depend on traffic to make money. Commercial providers do not have this luxury, and must instead try to find a more even balance between practicality and popularity.
Mytelegraph.co.uk does this by allowing/requiring its users to self-moderate. Comments on some sections of the website are read before they're published, but the majority of the blogs and the rest of the site rely on readers flagging up comments which they deem abusive or illegal.
The comments left on Shane's blog post explaining his moderation method provide a quick glimpse of the problems that come with justifying removing or not removing particular comments.
Potentially illegal messages left on blogs and forums have come to the fore in the last week, with the leaking of the BNP membership lists and the naming of Baby P's parents.
Each case represented a different kind of legal problem, but both involved highly emotive subjects and ultimately the threat of danger to those involved.
The identification of Baby P has been banned by the High Court, but that hasn't stopped dozens of posters on various message boards publishing their details. Anyone with one finger and the ability to use Google can find their names in a matter of seconds.
The same tools will help you find the BNP Membership list, the publication of which also flies in the face of a Court Order taken out by the BNP months ago.
In Smith v ADVFN PLC Justice Eady accepted that defamation laws may have to change, with messages on online forums being considered slander rather than libel.
The advent of the internet era may also mean changes need to be considered for contempt of court legislation. We may already be at the point where these changes begin to take place; whether or not action is brought against ISPs who allowed the publication of the BNP Membership List will serve as an interesting test of the effectiveness of the current contempt of court laws.
Defamation Laws have changed significantly since the days of the Guttenburg Press, when lies about the spread of disease were the major concern for a population ravaged by the plague. The focus moved from slander to libel as various means of mass comunication developed. The laws had to adapt again in the mid-20th Century as TV and Radio proliferated, and it seems now, less than a hundred years later, the laws will have to be looked at again to ensure their effectiveness in dealing with the challenges that come with a global conversation.
This level of interactivity provides one of the most difficult challenges currently facing media outlets; while on the one hand traffic generates advertising revenue, it also poses the problem of moderation.
One example of this dilemma is bbc.co.uk's old Football Forums, which allowed fans of all teams to discuss whatever was going on at their beloved club. Transfer gossip, injury news, takeover rumours...all in one place.
It provided a place to rant about the players, the management, the owners, Arsenal's latest dirty trick.
But it also provided the perfect place to bait fans of rival teams. Wind up merchants were rife, and brought with them a constant headache for the team of moderators whose job it was to enforce the Forum's rules.
In the end the forums were closed down and replaced with the current 606 message boards. They no longer feature 'Team Boards', only moderators can start threads or conversations, and opening hours are restricted.
The BBC was able to implement measures which were generally unpopular with its users because it doesn't depend on traffic to make money. Commercial providers do not have this luxury, and must instead try to find a more even balance between practicality and popularity.
Mytelegraph.co.uk does this by allowing/requiring its users to self-moderate. Comments on some sections of the website are read before they're published, but the majority of the blogs and the rest of the site rely on readers flagging up comments which they deem abusive or illegal.
The comments left on Shane's blog post explaining his moderation method provide a quick glimpse of the problems that come with justifying removing or not removing particular comments.
Potentially illegal messages left on blogs and forums have come to the fore in the last week, with the leaking of the BNP membership lists and the naming of Baby P's parents.
Each case represented a different kind of legal problem, but both involved highly emotive subjects and ultimately the threat of danger to those involved.
The identification of Baby P has been banned by the High Court, but that hasn't stopped dozens of posters on various message boards publishing their details. Anyone with one finger and the ability to use Google can find their names in a matter of seconds.
The same tools will help you find the BNP Membership list, the publication of which also flies in the face of a Court Order taken out by the BNP months ago.
In Smith v ADVFN PLC Justice Eady accepted that defamation laws may have to change, with messages on online forums being considered slander rather than libel.
The advent of the internet era may also mean changes need to be considered for contempt of court legislation. We may already be at the point where these changes begin to take place; whether or not action is brought against ISPs who allowed the publication of the BNP Membership List will serve as an interesting test of the effectiveness of the current contempt of court laws.
Defamation Laws have changed significantly since the days of the Guttenburg Press, when lies about the spread of disease were the major concern for a population ravaged by the plague. The focus moved from slander to libel as various means of mass comunication developed. The laws had to adapt again in the mid-20th Century as TV and Radio proliferated, and it seems now, less than a hundred years later, the laws will have to be looked at again to ensure their effectiveness in dealing with the challenges that come with a global conversation.
