As I dig into the tools and technologies of greatest interest to associations and organizations I invariably come upon reasons why they aren’t seeing greater acceptance and usage. Often it is simply related to organizational resistance, internal politics or the lack of a cohesive strategy, all of which have logical ways to overcome them as part of a cultural / organizational change strategy. Yet sometimes the issues are due to a concern for the well-being of the organization itself and the fiduciary responsibility the organization has for its members.

Blogging is one of those activities that both of those type of issues. There is plenty of interest in it and organizations are willing to expend the effort but there are a myriad of legal questions to. One issue that invariably comes up is liability and who is responsible for the actions of commenters to specific blog postings.

I am not a lawyer and will try to offer any legal advice, but the one thing that I do understand about the law and our legal system is the fact that decisions and findings are typically based on precedent. However, as with any emerging area of the law there are always differing opinions and the ability for a pretty wide interpretation of findings depending on the lens you are viewing the decision from. Because of the relative lack of legal precedent with regard to the myriad of issues surrounding blogging this has been one issue that is being watched closely by bloggers worldwide. Legal precedent has been pretty consistent in holding that an organization is not responsible for the actions of commenters, but a number of questions still remain largely surrounding how consistently this position will be upheld.

In a very recent decision by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in a case pitting Universal Communications Systems v. Lycos, the court has found, and essentially upheld previous rulings, that a company is not responsible for the actions of a commenter. In this case a company who had allegedly been victimized by defamatory statements on a message board regarding the value of its stock sued Lycos, which operated the board. The message board allowed users to post comments with minimal moderation, and no one from Lycos was responsible for the allegedly defamatory statements.

The finding, published on the First Circuit Court website and explained on the American Constitutional Society blog cites and applies Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to bloggers and message board posters and reaffirms:

“[no] provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” and that “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”

The court really examined Section 230 in upholding their decision and noted that

“Congress intended that, within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,”

adding that allowing bloggers and message board operators to be sued for the statements of commenters on their sites would have an “obvious chilling effect” on speech. Consistent with this finding, the court dismissed the complaint against Lycos.

While nothing is ever absolute, it is reasonable to say that once again our legal system has eliminated one of the common barriers to blogging by organizations / associations and provided good evidence that can be used to support responsible blog use as an effective outreach and communications vehicle.