Years ago, before the Internet was the place to be, some of us communicated via computer bulletin boards — the kind you accessed by plugging your 2400 baud modem into your phone line. I operated a couple of different Bulletin Board Systems that catered mainly to writers. This was great because I made a lot of friends and the services did a lot of good for a lot of people. It was occasionally bad because if you get a batch of writers together, even online, egos and feuds erupt. On a computer forum, there are always a few who will start posting messages that some individual — who may or may not be participating in or even aware of the B.B.S. — is a liar, a thief, a plagiarist, a drug user, a sexual deviant, etc. This kind of thing happened a number of times with different players and different accusations of perversion and/or unethical, possibly criminal activity. Usually, the "flame" messages were posted late at night, often on Friday or Saturdays, and it took me a while to realize that many were probably posted under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Almost invariably, I — as the sober operator of the system — wound up in the middle of the fray. In theory, I was just supplying the hardware and configuring the software…but if Writer #1 slandered Writer #2, Writer #2 would usually direct some or even all of his outrage at me. Often, Writer #2 threatened to sue me or slug me. Once, the insulted writer was also a producer who announced he would do everything in his power to destroy my career because his had been attacked on a system run on a computer that I owned. In all of these cases, by the way, you could count on Writer #1 — the one who composed the offending message — not coming to my defense, not offering to help out in any way. He posted the message but it was my problem.
No lawsuits were ever filed but when I set up and briefly ran a system for the Writers Guild, suits were often threatened and I found myself consulting with a number of lawyers. I kept asking them if one could really be sued if one operated a public computer-based forum on which someone felt they'd been defamed. The response I got was invariably double-talk. For some reason, most attorneys were unwilling to admit what I finally realized was the truth; that it was a new area of law with very few precedents, and that no one had any idea how some court might rule on the inevitable test cases.
Now, more than two decades later, the Internet is a way of life and the laws of libel or slander (I'm not even sure which it is on the 'net) have yet to fully shake down. As this article by John W. Dean makes clear, the law is still thrashing it out. That it's still going back and forth convinces me I was wise to get out of the B.B.S. business when I did.