Though we won’t know the reason behind the verdict for a while, an Italian court seems to have held a blogger responsible for comments that others left on his site.
One complaint about this court case is that the people lodging the complaint never even showed that the comments weren’t true.
But I can imagine lawsuits in the US centering on who’s responsible for material on a site. If someone posts a comment on this blog smearing a third party, can I be successfully sued?
Of course, there’s precedent, but I don’t know the law. If a newspaper prints a libelous letter from a reader, is the paper at risk? Someone knows the answer, but I haven’t bothered finding it.
I think in the US, it’s depended primarily on the defendant being able to show they’re merely providing a forum with absolutely no editorial control.
At least, I think that’s what I’ve read in cases where AOL and other ISPs have been sued for various bad things crossing their networks.