New regulations set out deadline for dealing with website comments

Posted on 15 Jan 2014 in Business, Information, Technology

New regulations outlining the process to be followed by website publishers who receive complaints about comments posted on their sites will come into force on 1st January 2014. Under the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations, publishers will be required to contact comment authors to inform them of a complaint and give them five days either to consent to the removal of their comment, or provide the publisher with their contact details to be passed to the complainant. If there is no response from the author, or they refuse to allow their details to be passed on, the publisher will have 48 hours to remove the comments from the site. The regulations also give complainants the right to insist that their identity remains concealed from the author of the comment.

There is more about the new regulations at:
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2013/november/
defamation-law-reforms-to-take-effect-from-the-start-of-2014/