Careful what you say online about MCN..
 

I think it's a pertinent reminder that we ought to always be careful about what we post. It's all too easy to rant with unrestrained vigour and passion, but this can often be libellous, so please always think about your own welfare and also that of SV650.org.


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.. to add to this and be completely boring ... but at this current time it has not been tested in the courts about what gets said a forum environment however it is widely anticipated that should anything get that far that the courts will take the opinion that the mods/admin of a site act as editors of the forum and therefore are liable for what gets said.. not necessarily the individual that originally may have expressed their opinion!

Hmm, I'm not sure if I actually posted the post I wrote, or if the MCN erased it with their EMP weapons. Anyway, just to say that the link's possibly not work safe due to some cuss words.

So...what if you were to start everything with "I think" so as to state it is an opinion only? Would that still be frowned upon? I know a lot of folk don't do this when giving their opinion on anything, from bikes to certain publications which would perhaps imply that what was posted is fact.

Or is it still treading on thin ice?

Genuinely interested.

Having said that, the VD bunch are rather vocal, it's no wonder. :lol: :lol:

"allegedly" doesn't work, repeating a libel can still be considered libel. But reporting facts is expressly not libel, and I believe neither is stating an opinion in most cases. "I think you're a ****" is not usually pursuable, if I remember right. "You're a ****", likewise, not pursuable. "You're a thief", libellous if untrue.

Firstly, I've not been on VD since last autumn I think so what was said there remains a mystery to me but I get the jist.

Jeez, one day we'll only be allowed to praise things to the hilt - otherwise keep schtum. :roll: :evil:

An example: Say, if you bought a new set of tyres and they just felt bloody awful on your SV, you'd maybe put a post on here saying as much. You're passing on your opinion to others who can accept/reject it at will. So if the manufacturer finds this thread and objects to your personal view they can drop a threatening letter to admin and the thread is gone in minutes.

Indeed, I suppose this has actually happened, even on more benign forums than VD. A forum is not a place of unquestionable fact, just a collection of opinions.

Last time I heard it was a country where we were entitled to our own opinions! :roll:

To express an opinion is obviously allowed however, in the eyes of the law (and i think it's a bit daft too!) on forums you are deemed to be doing more then just expressing your opinion as it is written down.

This again is where the law is a bit behind the times as it sees anything written down as being treated differently than say a conversation in a pub! - The idea being that if you were to be having a conversation in a pub that particular conversation may be only overheard by a handful of people.. however something written in an internet forum can be viewed by hundreds of people.

Therfore anything written within a forum arena no matter of the contents and possible caveat's that are put upon those opinions by the individual are still written and, therefore a liable claim could follow should a company wish to pursue a matter.

Hmmm, and people say we have freedom of speech. :roll:


NO no no, bad girl. Naughty K. Now you can go back to bed without any lunch as you'll just get things all political again you naughty, naughty person you. Go. Shoo. Someone's going to have to slap you for this!

I wonder what was actually said, was it just a case of people expressing their opinion or making up blatent lies about MCN?

We have treads here all the time saying product x isn't as good as product y etc. I doubt if you are objective and be factual etc there is much they can do (I mean after all mags like MCN etc do this weekly/monthly with their reviews).

Apparently there were accusations of bias and lack of journalistic integrity- which does step well into where lawyers tread.

Good point - so was that thread "reviewing" MCN then?! So confusing! :? :lol:

In which case I am not too suprised.

Skip :? Maybe, not a good one though :lol:

maybe you should try posting these things on the MCN forums.

I know what was said but I won't repeat it here, just a short summary.
There were quotes of claims by TT Marshalls about a conspiracy of bike journalists trying to stop the TT. MCN journalists were alledged to be involved.

I'm not a libel expert, but I know that in that thread, nobody made any specific claims, only repeated others, with it made clear that they were quotes.
I was quite impressed actually, normally people make broad sweeping statements and ignore facts.

Oh right, so they just quote somone elses comments?

Just out of curosity why would bike journs want to get the TT stopped?

The facts as reported on the NME, sorry MCN site are that they put undercover journos into the marshalling team to investigate training procedures, and were unhappy with the findings. Then opinions take over. The MCN would say they're only trying to improve safety.

This is discussed at length on the Ninja forum. Very interesting reading, including the thread on the IOM forum (which I could read yesterday but wants a sign in now)

I believe if the site is located on a server in the UK, then the owners of the forum can be held accountable for the content of the forum. A while ago I pointed out something similar and was accused of picking on the forum member so I kinda gave up on saying anything.

I'm involved in another forum that has been repeatidly threatened with legal action where basically forum members have been less than complementary concerning an event. The event owner threatened legal action, now its a banned subject.

I know there was a case relatively recently where it ruled in favour of the complaint (I can't remember the specifics).

I do buy the MCN for something to read at lunch etc but I usually skip past the dramatic articles and haven't read the one about the TT but intrestingly in todays there is a letter from Dave Jeffries' dad saying the MCN were right to highlight the issues at the TT.

see here Defamation

So we're not allowed to speak our minds on anything that may be important and/or bike related, but it's OK to clog the forum with ****e :evil:
:smt022

This isnt always the case but the penalties are likely to be brought under UK law.. it isnt yet know if a site can be accessed via the USA or another country if the legal jurisdiction of that country may be able to bring action against a site under their laws... ie Yahoo's current litigation with the French courts over the availability of Nazi memorabiia on Yahoo's sites have lasted for well over four years now.. because it is legal precidents the cases are likely to be huge and expensive.

This means that the likes of this forum and others who are not muli billion pound websites can not afford to have these sorts of actions brought against them!

So IF somebody pointed out in a totally innocent manner that the initials MCN typically known as "MotorCycle News" also spell "More Crap than News" that would qualify them for a letter form the MCN lawyers?

You're safe with that it's FACT

So we could just learn from this and give our cash to causes other then the EMAP dynasty?

The tabloid sensationalism of MCN is becoming tragic comedy in recent years. About time we, the buying public, voted with our cash.

I bought MCN for the first time in ages last month.It cost £1.70,and got me £2.00 off my entry to the BMF show.I can't think of any other reason to buy it though,and I hope that opinion was not libelous. :twisted:

I can think of another reason.. it got me £100 off my new lid last month :) ;)

I'm still laughing at the collective noun post.

A clunge of c****. Quality! :lol: :lol: :lol:

There's a wee bit of a possible conflict of interest with VD too, since Ben works for one of the Emap mags...

(edit: that was really careless wording. Not implying that Ben is biased or somehow an Emap puppet, he's a good guy- but it's not just legal action he'd have to worry about, the guy has to pay the bills too.

It has been tested in the courts, particularly the US, UK and Australia.

For some further info:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/apr1999/int-a16.shtml
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/law/1033079636.php
http://lawzone.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin...05&h=207&f=259
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2587057.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/freespeech...861890,00.html
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/...c=online_libel
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/new...737001,00.html

The last one was a case concluded in court on 22nd March this year. :wink: :D

End of the day, I dont think they will sue for people referring to them as More Crap than News because ultimately its an opinion based on what individuals deem the quality of the articles to be.

ie I do it because Im fed up of over sensationalised scaremongering of biking to be killed off [which they can not prove is actually going to happen], 600 shoot outs [because no-one buys anything other than a sport 600 right?], misleading articles [this letter WILL get you off a fine - does anyone actually know anyone its worked for? happy to take that back if it has AND no other factor was involved in the withdrawal and the Ducati issue also comes up here - to the point on the official Ducati blog it states theyve run misleading headlines twice] etc etc

Though actively saying they are trying to do something without proof on a site that belongs to an emap employee probably is going to see it withdrawn pdq.

Lynw.. .I stand corrected.. I particularly like this quote:-

"UK court officials haven't even learned to program their video recorders yet. They tend to work on very ancient definitions."

I agree with you Lyn, its been particular rubbish over winter when they have nothing to write about, and it hasnt really got better.

I only buy it for the back four of five pages of sport news which IMHO is much better written and researched than the front section of the paper. Also theres small sections of tips on riding and also theres a section on fixing broken bikes which I like to read and thats about it.

What happened to their quartlery MCN sport mag if they did that every month I'd buy that once a month instead of the paper.

MCN Sport folded - I had a subscription.

I thought it was excellent - lavish full colour double spread technoporn :lol:

I used to subscribe but i got a message saying it had been withdrawn because of insuficent circulation or something to that effect.

Shame really because it was one of the best mags on the market IMO, really suprised it didnt sell more of maybe it was to expensive to produce?

I agree, now there was a good mag. I can only think it didn't sell because of rubbish distribution, I could never find it :(

I wonder if the reason it didnt sell is because too many people see MCN as More Crap than News and the reporting in the paper tarnished the sports mag with the same brush.

Its probably a case of it didnt sell because people suspected it would be a glossier, more expensive version of the paper.

did any hear the one about the jewish-japanese restaurant?

























SO SUE ME!


:lol:

I think as a forum, we are far better at self regulation than Visor Down can ever manage.

We are more willing to shoot someone down who over steps the mark and (to my opinion) seem to do so publicly, rather than having to rely on the Moderators, though even I have nudged the moderators on occasion to get a result.

Take for example a recent occasion in which a member dissed a dealer publicly - whatever the facts - and I suspect we will never be sure what they are,a large number of members shot the complainant down on the grounds of fairness and accuracy.

Disagree with that. Visordown collective come down very heavily when people step out of line. Its an interesting fact you arent probably aware of but the dissed dealer did themselves libel someone on visordown over copyright theft to come up against a wave of opinion which resulted in them deleting the thread pdq afterwards.
Visordown is regulated a lot more than people give credit for. The majority of it is by weight of opinion of the forum, and the mods have banned people for intolerable behaviour recently too.


See above reply. Visordown collective is by no means unwilling to shoot people down warranted or not. Visordown shoots people down quite fast and quite viciously at times. This forum when it does it does so when its warranted and does it reasonably. THATS the real difference tbh, because you dont know vd if you think people there wont shoot you down. Id suggest you do a search for any of RS-250-Squids thread to gauge an understanding of what Im talking about.

IIRC I pointed out that it could be considered libellous. I didnt "shoot" him down, well I dont think I did, just tried to get through the anger and point out some consequences. But see above reply re the dissed dealer. They arent squeaky clean on this issue and admit to making a "mistake". Wonder if they'll be magnanimous and apply that to the person in question and allow him a "mistake". :?