See One, Do One, Teach One

At our local bloggers’ meeting last night, we were discussing commenting.  It is my belief that unless pure spam or pure flame that comments should be approved.  (Heck, even Scoble has a little spam slip through occasionally.)

One of the participants is very selective about what comments he allows to be posted on his blog.  One of his points was that people in his community had been sued for liable for comments posted by a visitor.

I knew that people had been sued before over comments, but I had always figured that the comment poster, not the publisher, would be held accountable.

Anyway, the California Supreme Court has now set the precedent that “publishers could not be held liable for posting defamatory comments written by others.”

Internet publishers are thus protected by the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that grants immunity against defamation claims. 

Let your visitors and users post and comment at will!