Raywood said:
I do not see the moderators having a problem with libel but it would help if Future did clarify their position to them.
The main area of threat is from untrue complaints against manufacturers and dealers but the manufacturers do not seem to care what is said about them judging by the complaints here and on other forums...…
For the publishers similar problems can occur on Facebook and other social media platforms they run so they should be well aware of the risk.
Apologies for drifting slightly off topic here but there are some interesting points raised which I'd like to explore.
A complaint which alleges problems or issues with a brand or specific model of caravan on a moderated internet forum such as this one could potentially be deemed to be defamatory to the manufacturer, but in law the defamation has to be assessed as being proven 'in the eyes of an ordinary man'.
There is a veritable wealth of evidence that would prove that caravan manufacturers products can and do leave their factories in less than perfect condition, therefore the 'ordinary man' who saw the evidence would be likely to agree that things such as poor build quality or shoddy workmanship are not uncommon within the caravan industry (for example).
Manufacturers can and sometimes do reply to these internet forum complaints, in fact caravan related internet forums provide a free of charge real time focus group for caravan manufacturers and they appear to accept that complaints will be aired about the quality of the goods that they produce. The complaints don't directly affect the manufacturers trading position, they are shielded from consumer law by their dealer networks and perhaps a libel action from the manufacturers would reveal some truths or set some precedence that they would prefer not to be explored in a law court.
Dealerships on the other hand can suffer loss of reputation and their future trading prospects could be inhibited by a libellous complaint, so moderators generally remove all references to dealerships or other commercial entities such as caravan parks, accessory sales outlets etc.
Forum moderators have no access to evidence from either side, and their administrators have no interest in gathering evidence of poor quality or bad workmanship etc;
The 'common man' would have no real way of knowing if complaints were genuine without hard evidence, which is why the Consumer Rights Act was set up to explore and assess this evidence on an individual basis in court.
Facebook is in a slightly different position, there are 'community standards' in place which mean that a post is often taken down if these standards are breached, but a complaint about the breach normally has to be made first.
It's a simple matter for a caravan dealership (for example) to monitor a handful of caravan forums, they only need to worry about the bigger ones, but it would be a full time job for a caravan dealer to constantly monitor every Facebook post, so unless they actually see something concerning them which they believe to be defamatory and complain about it the comment remains publicly visible on Facebook.
To briefly summarise, if you really want to 'name and shame' a caravan dealer or any other business entity don't tell us - tell Facebook!