The Legal Ramifications of Posting to Chatboards - Chapter 94

[BellisimaJ.]

Thank you, Kevin T. 

This little snippet relating to an aviation industry chat board and a prominent Australian businessman / aviation regulator turned up in a newsletter today:

Dick Smith has been the subject of talk at the Professional Pilots Rumour Network, www.pprune.org, usually in animated discussions concerning his theory on aviation matters and his aviation experiences. A recent development is here, where one poster on Pprune, who thought she was posting anonymously, was identified by Dick Smith and forced to make a public apology and probably a private settlement. It sheds new light on websites where participants assume that because they are anonymous, they feel they can post freely and without fear of their identity being discovered. This now does not seem to be the case, and sometimes slanderous comments can be used against them by tracking their IP addresses. This could have wider ramifications for internet users generally...

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=254348


:turkey1:



Edited to change the title.

[BellisimaJ.]

The forum, pprune, referred to in the above post, is a highly respected forum in the aviation industry. It is a source of aviation info on a worldwide basis.
They have recently taken action to combat the growing problem of cyberstalking and bashing of posters.

..for starters 'happenings' is a banned word - or anything sounding like it. You will see that we have removed the word from Airports. So now we have just the airport name. That is how it will be henceforth. We plan to bring back a professional approach to this forum no ifs no buts.

Shortly we will be closing all the airport threads. This will enable you to start a new thread afresh. If there is something you think is of real importance you can copy it over.

But to get one thing clear first. We are not out to spoil your interest or your fun, but we are going to step on childish, abusive and stupid posts immediately. That will mean that all your hard work in making a 'professional' attempt at a post you like but nobody else does will be deleted instantly. It will be our decision and we will not give reasons for our actions.

We suggest you read Danny's post again because we will be applying his rules. That is what we mods do. Our 'job' is unpaid but each of us has a wide experience in aviation, including flying and running airlines. All 60 moderaters (did you know that?) mod for fun, and we certainly do not like the job to be tedious so we hope you will help us.

So there you are. Please recognise that when spotters come on this forum they will be shunted to the Spotters forum. If you are abusive to us, or to other posters you will be held to account. We have a dungeon where we can take certain unpalatable actions so be warned.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=192576