Bus company threatens to sue Reddit moderator over bad press

[marmar]

Most people have had bad bus rides—is there such thing as a good one?—but one redditor has endured a ride from hell. A user by the name of NegatedVoid was threatened with a lawsuit after helping moderate a thread on Reddit that was critical of Suburban Express, a bus company in the Chicago area that caters to college students.

The Reddit discussion was spurred by a Facebook post and story in the University of Illinois student paper that described an incident when a Suburban Express driver belittled an exchange student. A graduate student, Jeremy Leval, witnessed the incident and told the driver his language was "offensive and unnecessary." Later on, he went to Facebook to express his disgust with the company. More than 700 users shared the post and it was liked more than 600 times.

Not among those fans was Suburban Express, which emailed Leval four days later saying he was banned from the bus line for life and was being fined $500 for “liquidated damages,” part of the company's terms of service.

Leval is not the first rider to be banned for life because of things posted on the Internet. In the past, Suburban Express has tracked down Yelp reviewers and banned them when the bus company received a less than perfect review. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dailydot.com/business/suburban-express-uiuc-reddit-moderator-bus-lawsuit/