Bloggers Beware: The Five Commandments for Bloggers

Much thanks to Loy Huichieh over at From a Singapore Angle for putting up the link.

It's a Law Gazette feature on how to keep yourself from falling afoul of the legal pitfalls that is libel as a result of keeping a blog i.e. publishing. I've done a previous post on this before and while I like to think that my advice was funnier and more witty, nothing quite beats appropriate authority.

And it does develop on some rather interesting issues that have not made public consciousness i.e. has no bearing on the freedom of speech and expression, in particular, how binding are goods and services sold through your blog. And yes, do read the Electronic Transactions Act (Cap. 88) which can be found over at Statutes Online. You CAN form valid contracts over emails.

But it doesn't discuss blog owner's liability for comments posted by other users. As far as I can determine, unless you're in the US, most other jurisdictions do hold you liable so it is highly suggested that you keep awares of what comments have been posted on your blog either through use of a notification service when someone comments or through something like comments moderation in Bloggers which requires you to accept each and every single comment posted before it appear. and if you really want to be safe, switch off comments altogether.

Nevertheless, it's a great succinct and generally well-written article but I fear that unless you're a law student or are familiar with certain areas of law he talks about e.g. contract and torts, it's not going to be easy to understand all the nuances. But still, it's a good easy read.

Peace.