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.
new moderator for Unwedchastity
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.
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.
curious Maybe ultimately you would win arguing freedom of speech,
i would rather say the moderator would win because he can't be held responsible because he has no rights to the forum, this is the sole responsibility of the owner. a moderator is not responsible to the outside world but only has to work internally to enforce the rules of the forum. to be clear, if illegal content is posted a moderator can't be held responsible if it would be allowed under the rules of the forum
curious He would have significant legal exposure as moderator, so that warning stands.
but we are not a german forum, so the legal situation in germany is irrelevant
Joh @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.
@Laura what do you think? in the end you have to decide
curious Not protecting your wifi against abuse leads to being held resonsonsible for what other people do with it.
ok, now i want to see proof of that. then theoretically it would be possible that i, as the owner of our wifi, would be responsible if my wife did illegal things on the internet?
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.
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.
perhaps i should not have separated my two arguments, because one requires the other. so, a moderator works internally, he has no responsibility to outside third parties because he is not liable for the forum. liable for the content of the forum is the owner (@Laura) and she has to make sure that the forum does not violate the laws of her country. the risk of being held liable as a moderator is zero because the moderator does not act outside the forum and does not represent the forum, he only does that internally. the only thing german authorities could do would be to deny access to german users.
anyway, i wanted to create this topic so that interested people can get in touch, everything else is up to @Laura to discuss
Even if there is no legal basis for holding you accountable for the forum itself, an overzealous prosecutor might make a case that your actions or inactions may have contributed to someone's daughter getting abused, and that your position of power means you could have prevented that but failed to do so. While I personally very much doubt that such a case would arise or that, if it arose, it would lead to a judgment against you, there is still a non-zero chance that it might cause you a headache somewhere down the line.
That said, between online anonymity, encrypted network connections and the fact that the server is not hosted in reach of German authorities, I find such a threat to be a purely theoretical scenario.
youdontknowme have contributed to someone's daughter getting abused, and that your position of power means you could have prevented that but failed to do so
we have agreed that ‘forced wearing’ is not permitted, which would violate the forum rules and the moderator would have to intervene there