[NationalPark]

We won't know the actual exposure until it ends up in the courts. Remember, we're talking about removing the good faith liability protections. Maybe a few thousand views of a libelous comment is enough, even if it was eventually removed. Either way, someone has to hire lawyers to go defend this, so it's not free.

We should also expect new bad actors to take advantage of this. As long as they can spam libel faster than moderators can delete it, they can force the site to shut down or risk the lawsuits. While I'm sure YC has its share of enemies deserved or not, even perfectly innocent people are attacked online every day for no reason at all.

[gowld]

There's no reason to assume that an operator would be liable for libel spam, since they lack mens rea intent. Libel would only be in play if they intentionally refused to take down content or tried to extort people with it.