Ask HN: What to do if someone posts something illegal to a SaaS you run? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What to do if someone posts something illegal to a SaaS you run?

2 pointsthrowaway2016a3 comments

There is all this talk about starting a Facebook competitor by a particular high profile angel investor and others. But what about content moderation on these sites?

What do you do if someone posts something illegal (say abuse images) to your site?

What about if someone threatens violence?

My instinct would be to hide (but keep) the content, immediately preserve any logs, then call the FBI.

But what if someone makes a threat or posts something illegal and you don't catch it because your content filters are not as advanced as Facebook and YouTube? Heck, Facebook and Youtube miss things all the time.

Fake news?

What are your liabilities as a site operator?

It seems to me that aside from the obvious problems of needing critical mass to take advantage of the network effect and the privacy and security requirements there are a lot of hidden liabilities for running such a site.

First things first — IANAL.

What I can tell you is that a lot depends on where you are located and who your regulators are.

For example, in Belgium, the police have pretty broad powers to come in and just seize stuff, and you are criminally liable for anything that gets onto your servers, regardless of how that happened. Now, the police generally are smart enough to ask for your assistance in catching the real criminals who uploaded the illegal content and they would rather work with you than against you. But make no mistake, they will turn around and haul your ass down to jail in a heartbeat, if they think you are complicit.

I think fake news are a separate category than (threats of) violence and kiddy porn. If for one of those types of things you immediately notify the relevant authorities that is the most important thing and I doubt there would be any liabilities.

In general, involving legal counsel as soon as possible is the best option. The worst possible scenario is for it be proven that you knew about something and didn't take steps to deal with it in a timely manner.

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