Culpability in a pseudonymous social network

[maninthekrowd]

In the situation in which registration to an online social network makes no request for any identifying information from a participant, and all participants clearly understand that all other participants are engaging via a pseudonym, what happens when a participant is found under US law to have breached specific libel or communications legislation?
Specifically - the social network company has no means to identify the offending individual, so would the social network company now become liable in any way?

Of course we have the normal Terms of Service that assign liability, and strict rules to not exchange violent, pornographic or similar offensive material, threats to life etc, and we empower every user to instantly block such content, which in turn flags that content to the company - and it flags that user to other users as someone whose content is regularly flagged so they can choose to avoid that content or not receive it. We also enable instant deletion of content both by users that post it, and by the social network management.

 

[ElleMD]

So if Suzie creates a fake Facebook account using the fake name SU-Z-Q and uses it to commit libel against Beth, is Mark Zuckerburg liable? No. Not any more than Microsoft is liable for emails sent to or from a gmail account. The offender is the one in legal trouble, not the creator of the medium used.

 

[army judge]

In the situation in which registration to an online social network makes no request for any identifying information from a participant, and all participants clearly understand that all other participants are engaging via a pseudonym, what happens when a participant is found under US law to have breached specific libel or communications legislation?
Specifically - the social network company has no means to identify the offending individual, so would the social network company now become liable in any way?

Of course we have the normal Terms of Service that assign liability, and strict rules to not exchange violent, pornographic or similar offensive material, threats to life etc, and we empower every user to instantly block such content, which in turn flags that content to the company - and it flags that user to other users as someone whose content is regularly flagged so they can choose to avoid that content or not receive it. We also enable instant deletion of content both by users that post it, and by the social network management.

Your IP indicates you're in the UK.
Your country doesn't refer to itself as the "federales".
Hmmm