On Wednesday (25 June) I’ll be at the Press Gazette Media Law conference in London, delivering what will be my last conference presentation as a BBC person before I leave (on Friday) to join Headshift.
I’m going to be speaking about the sort of risks – primarily, in this instance, legal risks – which arise when news and media organisations encourage or host audience discussion, content submissions and community.
You may be surprised: I’ve come up with at least eleven different legal issues that online community managers and social media providers need to be aware of.
I’m also going to discuss the different between moderation (policing) and hosting (facilitating), both of which, some solicitors believe, actually increase a website publisher’s exposure to liability for libel.
I’ll get my slides up on slideshare as soon as I’ve got better bandwidth than I’m currently getting using a nokia n95 as a bluetooth modem whilst on a train in a 3g wilderness somewhere south of Birmingham.