new moderator for Unwedchastity

curious

The US actually has some of the strongest protections in place for these situations. Companies were being hit with frivolous lawsuits in attempting to moderate content, while the "Wild West" approach was letting them off scot-free. This was making the internet far more offensive and obscene (and more importantly reducing the revenue of advertisers.) So bipartisan lawmakers under pressure from their corporate puppetmasters crafted the 1996 Communications Decency Act which holds that wesites not responsible for what their users post.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1157683233/supreme-court-google-twitter-section-230

There is quite a robust debate in this country on whether or not Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act should be abolished or amended.

WriterAlexis When I think of the history of censoring obscene content in America, this song from Tom Lehrer comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaHDBL7dVgs

What are the expected duties and responsibilities of a moderator here?

WriterAlexis
I am well awate that free speech in the US has a legal standing that makes it pretty much impossible to go after forum owners or moderators.
But @Joh is, according to his profile, from Germany and legal standards there are different.
He would have significant legal exposure as moderator, so that warning stands.

Angelina anyway, @Joh you seem to be the only one who is interested, would you be willing to do it and @Laura would you accept it?

@Laue and I would first have to talk about her expectations and my tasks with framework conditions. If we come to a common denominator, I would be willing to do it.

curious Out of curiosity, is this a theoretical concern, or is it something German prosecutors have actually done in the past?

curious But @Joh is, according to his profile, from Germany and legal standards there are different.
He would have significant legal exposure as moderator, so that warning stands.

Thank you for your concern but in the end I have to decide how high will be the risk and how likely will it be that a German government organisation will contact me.

pestulens
This principle of 'Störerhaftung' has been used many times, though in other context.
When you open your wifi in Germany as a private person and someone else used this open wifi for things illegal in Germany (even something rather harmless than file sharing of copyrighted material, the owner of that wifi point is held liable. Even if he can proof that it was not he who actually did the file sharing. Not protecting your wifi against abuse leads to being held resonsonsible for what other people do with it.
Same thing for people running discussion boards. And it is easy to see that if the owner is out of reach authorities will go after the next best target - moderators - if they can.

curious if they can.

This is the important point.

Joh
You are aware that you leave a trace wherever you go online? You have an email address with a German ISP. They certainly have records about the IP addresses that accessed the account which leads to your mobile or Internet carrier who has records which IP your device had at any given time.
Easy enough to identify someone when you can access those information.

Angelina Countries like to maintain control over their citizens and do what they can to prevent their citizens from shpping for more favorable jurisdictions. If they truly want to combat what gets posted on this site, they will go after any person with a shred of responsibility they can get their hands on, whether you or I feel that is justified or not.

This can have some unforeseen results, like when an 18-year-old British boy was planning to visit his slightly younger long-distant boyfriend in France and was at risk of falling afoul of British sex tourism laws, created with the idea of middle-aged men buying an underage hooker's services in some small island country, despite French age-of-consent laws being met and the couple's relationship being that of a loving, enthusiastically consenting couple.

For a more recent and visible example, see the EU's attempts to enforce GDPR compliance on US-run sites.

That said, I believe curious is also overestimating the exposure a bit. Sure, ISPs can see that you are interacting with the site, but that is about all the info that can be gotten out of them. You need access to UWC's servers to do much more, and while that certainly is possible, authorities have bigger fish to fry than going through that effort to go after a place that has nothing more problematic than misterpoll.

Angelina but we are not a german forum, so the legal situation in germany is irrelevant

I am afraid that's wrong.
Legal principle in Germany is, that a case must be filed with the court where the law breaking happened. When it comes to the Internet, that means wherever you can read the content. In other words, because you can read the forum from everywhere in Germany, as. Prosecutor you can file charges in any court you like.
Where the forum is hosted or owned is irrelevant, where it can be read, only that matters.

youdontknowme see the EU's attempts to enforce GDPR compliance on US-run sites.

I can't claim to know every instance of this, but most of the ones I am familiar with all deal with multinational corporations that do buisness in Europe. IE they have corporate branches and servers in EU countries, accept payment in euros through EU banks, ship goods to European customers from warehouses located in Europe, and/or make active efforts to maintain a European customer base. Very different than a site like this where the only connection to the EU is that some people from the EU connect to it.

Of course, if someone is a German citizen and/or is in Germany when they connect to this site then they are bound by German law and can be prosecuted if their conduct here breaks it, but I can't really speak to how that might go since I am nether German nor a lawyer, let alone a German Lawyer.

Laura I need someone who has enough time

That is always the sticking point. I would be willing to devote some time to the health of this community but I couldn't do it on my own and I don't think many of us could. Maby a team of part-time volunteers could manage it but then someone needs to manage the team.

pestulens That is always the sticking point

More time than me, if more specific

Laura If you are interested in help then let's talk about it via PM. I get the impression from looking at your responses so far that it's not really you. If it is the case then say so openly.

pestulens For moderators, I have no idea.

But yes, Störerhaftung has been a pain in the posterior of people trying to offer a free Wifi hotspot.

There the issue would be generally using your external IP to commit "copyright infringement".

Joh I get the impression from looking at your responses so far that it's not really you

What do you mean?

Laura The discussion of s new Moderator IS now running 7 days and your only comments was He/she must have more time than you.
No further talk with the members who offered help. No information what task need to be done, how it should be done, in wich time frame a reaction is expected.
Apart from that, the least you could do would be to say thank you for the offer to help.