Ahemm,…
…so far I believed that at least among the moderators are people more knowledgable about (internet) law, about hosting, hosting contracts and the responsibilities of hosts.
If Theresa is mentioned in a harrassing, maybe even sexually harrassing, way or in a diffamating way on a website maintained at a certain host, and cannot contact or effect any change in behaviour with the owner of that site itself, then it is the HOST who has to change things and tell his client to stop doing this (at least if he doesn’t want to be involved in a probably VERY COSTLY lawsuit).
Theresa, before now someone says that “Matt” probably doesn’t have the standard “no harrassment, no diffamation, etc.” clause in his hosting contract and so can’t/needn’t do anything there, can then also go to the nice people who provide this host (=Matt) with connection to the net itself, and you can be extremely sure that these guys do have such a clause in effect which Matt had to sign, when he signed with them. They may just decide to shut Matt’s connection down as long as he doesn’t shut down sites which harrass/diffame people.
Theresa’s choices are by no means exhausted with just asking the host more or less nicely to effect compliance with laws on his server. She can also try with the Postal and Mail fraud department and with the FBI internet crime department, who also tend to listen if criminal activities or content is reported.
Thus, it maybe funny to pander jokes at an obviously very frustrated person, but it certainly doesn’t gel with the situation at hand.
