Malicious Defamation of Character on Forum

[Bryon]

Greetings.

After participating in a forum for approximately a year I had a disagreement with the senor moderator who subsequently began deleting my posts because concrete evidence was being presented that revealed that a major fraud against the public had taken place concerning the publishing industry and apparently he had developed some personal interest or biased concern toward covering that up. He didn't have a problem with my assertions, that a serious act of fraud had taken place, until I provided conclusive evidence that that could not be refuted. I responded directly to him using the internal messaging system to the effect that I would no longer participate in the forum unless an apology was first made to yours truly for his untoward behaviour.

At that point I was surprised to find that I was banned from the forum which action can only reflect badly upon my business in that such would cause people to believe that some unruly behaviour was involved that prompted the moderator into taking such action. I wrote to the moderator who is also the registrant of the domain name informing him that under the circumstances his behaviour constitutes a malicious act of libel in that my real name and business, the latter being linked to from his forum, was being slurred by his actions and I have not as yet received any reply or redress regarding my grievance though I am sure that he had opportunity to consider such.

The forum is registered using an anonymous method and litigation is being thereby frustrated in that the man's real identity is still unknown. How can the full legal name of the forum owner be obtained in order to begin proceedings against him for libel?

Thank you.

 

[NYClex]

I am not quite sure where the libel is in this. Libel is a defamatory statement of fact that has been published. Where is the statement the forum owner made?

If you would file a suit you probably could obtain a subpoena against the the web-hosting company to reveal the identity of the registrant. But so far I see no basis for a libel suit.

 

[Bryon]

Dear NYClex,

Thank you for your prompt response. I admit that the grounds for libel do appear to be rather tenacious in that such rests only upon a word being placed directly beneath my name. However that slur namely; 'banned' which is repeated approximately three hundred and fifty times; in that each post entered in there by yours truly would now carry that same message; and with perhaps a thousand individuals accessing that site on a monthly basis, the actually publishing of that slight upon my name could run into the tens of thousands of incidents while covering the entire globe.

If someone were to publish a person's real name that was connected to their business; for example,

John
(Reject)

- with link to John Doe Inc.

would that not be a statement of libel and especially so when done with malicious intent meant to discredit Joe Doe and prevent people from doing business with John Doe? A statement can consist of simply one word and according to what I have gathered from going over the laws as concerns the internet; a suit for damages could be filed in almost any country where an offending page has been downloaded.

There was also a rather weird move on his part in that he just prior to banning yours truly had went in and deleted large sections of the forum (accidentally perhaps) and then maintained that the site had been subject to an attack of vandalism. I know however that he was responsible because I was online when he logged in and he admitted in a private email that he had been deleting posts at that exact same time. He even posted a notice claiming the site had been defaced by someone and claimed he was going to notify the police. He acted like he had a panic attack and was under some pressure to somehow block my posts when it became clear that I really had evidence which exposed an international multi-billion dollar fraud.

If Clayton Ruby, a rather well known high-profile Canadian lawyer, could be retained to successfully defend a flying squirrel that the Canadian government was trying to deport; surely I can retain one that can convince a judge that my good name and reputation is worth more than that rodent's security. (Sorry Sabrina!)

What do you think, could a good lawyer convince a judge that the man intended to libel yours truly and in fact did? He was after all warned that I considered that unnecessary and rash act to be damaging to my reputation and business and he was given an opportunity to avoid a lawsuit by either erasing the offending material or reinstating the account but instead chose not to do so.

Thank you.

 

[NYClex]

libel means that a false statement of fact was made. If you are in fact banned from using a forum, the assignment of that "title" would not be a false statement.

As to your question about making this a case, in law school our professors taught us to argue any side of any case. So I am sure an attorney would be able to give your case a spin that will make it appear to be a matter of utmost national importance, headed right away for the Supreme Court. But once you are out of law school, back in the real world, you see that the real world has not the time to bother. Therefore, no, in my opinion it would be a waste of time and effort to pursue this.