Legal liability in hosting forum

I'd like to set-up a forum on my webspace on a topic that could draw politically/socially/racially insensitive comments.

I am living in South Korea, born in Ireland and the website is hosted in America. What is the worse legal action that could be taken against me as being responsible for the set-up of the forum?

Well, the Ireland laws should have no bearing. I'm not sure what the laws are in South Korea, but here's my take:

The first hurdle is whether or not your country allows such conduct from its citizens. Even if your website is hosted outside SK, if your conduct is illegal in SK, then you can be punished for it.

You'll also be bound to laws governing the content in the US. For example, if your site is about planning to overthrow the US government through non-democratic means or something, they won't take kindly on that. If you're sharing files that are copyrighted in the US, you may also face US legal problems.

Assuming that your forum is legal in SK and the US, you also must be aware with the hosting provider's TOS. If they prohibit content of a derogatory nature, they may take action against you, such as shutting down your site, etc.

It's really a matter of what is being discussed. Discussing something that is legal in the US but illegal in SK, may bring SK legal action against you even though the site is not hosted in SK. Discussing something that is legal in SK but illegal in the US may bring US legal action against you even though you don't live there.

Is the moderator of a forum legally liable for content of the posters? Say for example I(as a user, not a mod) was to post material calling for the undemocratic overthrow of the US government on devshed and the mods failed to delete the thread for, say 5 days, are the devshed mods legally liable for the content of their site in this instance?

Probably not because the moderators don't own DevShed. But if this forum you're moderating is also owned by you - it's possible that you'd have some share of the liability. If you're just volunteering your time moderating, I doubt you'd be held liable.

If you have a forum that someone posts material like you mentioned, then chances are, unless you were *promoting* it, the liability would be passed on to the offender. Now, if it's a forum where you're actually encouraging the discussion, that's another story.