If I ran a question-and-answer website in the US with absolutely no moderation, what legal trouble can I get into?
<p>Suppose the contents are rated in the same way motion pictures are rated, and the users are warned before hand and are given the option to turn safety on and off. </p>

<p>References to antecedent lawsuits and court decisions are very much appreciated.</p>

<p>Mostly defamation, and copyright infringment</p>

<p>Possibly incitement of violence and other forms of illegal speech.</p>

<p>If answers/comments on your site allows images to be posted then it is possible to inadvertently host child pornography</p>

<p>Basically your website can get in trouble because it can be illegal to post certain things (e.g. long passages from a book, defamatory statements etc). Since your website is technically keeping those things on the internet for everyone to see, it can get into legal trouble if due diligence isnt done to ensure such things are removed from the site in a reasonable way and amount of time</p>

<p>Online hate speech won’t incur consequences unless it veers into the territory of “incitement to imminent lawless action or true threats,” according to the First Amendment Center (www.firstamendmentcenter.org/hate-speech-online). </p>

<p>So, yes, it can bring consequences but it’s an exceedingly difficult level of speech to reach. The incitement portion requires imminence - if the speech leads to violence in the future, it’s still protected. It’s not until the speech leads to violence “right now” or imminently, that it would draw repercussions for the poster. The latter portion requires an affirmative actual threat against somebody: think “I’m going to ____” instead of “Somebody should _____”.  </p>

freedom-of-speech