Suppose that a developer builds a website that let students write reviews of their university.
It seems possible that such a site might get lawsuits from the universities if there are some negative reviews on the website.
So, is there any way for such a site to minimize the probability of such suits? If the site includes a provision in its terms of use that indicates that the users are responsible for the review they write, is that useful?
There are some things you can do to reduce your risk, but nothing will absolutely protect you. A person who makes a defamatory statement is liable and can be prosecuted under Malaysian law. A publisher may be could to be also liable for publishing a defamatory statement. Therefore, you need to guarantee that your web site does not ever include any defamatory statements (that's hard to do).
This article analyzes the problem from the perspective of the Malaysian Defamation Act 1957 and the Penal Code. There is a possible defense available t a publisher, that the publication is unintentional if you can show that you did not intend to publish the statement, did not know that the words might be understood to be refer to the plaintiff, and you had exercised all reasonable care in relation to the publication. The first step therefore is to hire a (Malaysian) lawyer to tell you whether there is any hope of using this defense. Ask about apologies, since the article indicates that "an apology may be an effective defence although the facts of the case may need to be scrutinized in order to determine the effectiveness of any purported apology by the defendant" (for example, immediately deleting the defamation and apologizing is more likely to be effective than waiting until you get sued).
That law was designed for cases where a publisher would not be a passive conduit for statements of other people, hence would be expected to scrutinize the material that you publish. That is pretty much the opposite of online review sites. There is a compter-specific law, The Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 which might also apply. As this (recent) article points out, the Act does not say and the courts have yet to decide whether online publishers can escape liability for unwittingly publishing defamatory material.
