This week I heard that one of the Realneo web techs got an email through the Realneo.us contact link from a judge (not sure what the name or the ethnicity the judge was). The judge wanted the web tech to expunge a link and a paragraph from a report done a few weeks ago by a Realneo content provider. So the web tech contacted one of the Realneo administrators (who wasn’t on vacation) to find out from the administrator if the link, or both the link and the content, should be deleted from the Realneo content provider’s report. Another alternative which I understand the Administrator and the web tech discussed was the option to insert their own new link and new content to sooth the situation....
From what I understand the administrator and the tech decided to meet for a beer in order to discuss the issue. I’m not sure how they finally worked it out...
Then later in the week another Realneo administrator got a telephone call from a Realneo content provider who demanded that the administrator delete a post from another Realneo content provider because the post contained information which was false.
The administrator, from what I heard, took that telephone call as a very good sign because after Realneo has been on line for about 7 years the administrator told me that there has only been this one telephone call complaining about anything “false” on Realneo.
That’s a massive compliment for the Realneo community....7 years and only one piece of information on the site which is inaccurate (the administrator was nervous about going too far and said that the word “false” was too strong, and preferred to use the word “inaccurate”)
Both the web tech and the administrators I have spoken with tell me that they love to get these requests - to delete comments and content and requests to modify content - from the public – and especially from judges, tax officials, police, government employees and Realneo content providers – because the demands to delete content makes the administrators and web technicians feel very important in their on-line, unpaid, volunteer positions.
The administrators and web technicians tell me that the more telephone calls and emails they get, calls in which the caller or emailer threatens them with legal and other actions, and threatens Realneo with legal actions, the more these administrators and web technicians feel they are making a difference in the community and the more they feel like continuing to provide their volunteer efforts to support and improve Realneo and their community.
“LEGAL ACTION?! BRING IT ON!” Is what all the administrators and all the web technicians have exuberantly expressed to me.
Now I’m sure people who know me can imagine that I would caution the Realneo administrators and web technicians who I am friends with against this type of BRING IT ON bravado. People who know me know that my mantra is “discretion is the better part of valor”. ; If I am walking down the sidewalk on the south side of the street and someone asks me to move over to the north side of the street – my discretion usually tells me that going over the north side of the street is the best decision.
So this “go to the other side of the street mentality if anyone asks you to” is what I am trying to convince all the Realneo administrators and all the Realneo web technicians: If anyone from the public gets ahold of you and asks you to delete or modify a Realneo report – it is probably the best thing to do to move over to the other sidewalk.
But one of the more experienced administrators brought up a point which I hadn’t thought about...the experienced administrator said that there was legal liability which attached to an administrator if the administrator was actively removing content at the request of the public. In effect the content which the administrator deleted or modified became in part the administrators’ content – if the administrator just left the content alone then the administrator/web tech could not be found to be a “publisher” of the material.
The experienced administrator suggested that I look at the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). The administrator suggested that I check out section 230 of the CDA which the administrator told me prevents Web site owners and Internet service providers from being treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another content provider.
The experienced administrator also told me to look at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to understand who is legally responsible for content on a web site like Realneo.
So I have some reading to do...but I think I am going to go over to the North Side of the street to do my reading, because I see someone coming towards me on my sidewalk.