Lots of things can lead to lawsuits. Especially in a climate where reason and live-and-let-live have been replaced by litigation. It wasn't always like that, but then again we didn't always have this many lawyers.<p>I have received on average at least one threat of a lawsuit per <i>month</i> since roughly 1998, which is when we started getting a little larger online. As a rule these threats come from the United States, and equally predictable once I outline the legal situation to them they change their tone and become polite and reasonable individuals.<p>I think that for bloggers the same holds, simply add an international component to your situation and the cost of 'because I can' legislation goes up so much that you might end up resolving things amicably instead of through the courts.<p>I also have a rule that anybody that does not want to be reasonable <i>has</i> to sue me, that is, they actually have to follow through on their threat. To date that hasn't happened.<p>So most of this is all bark and very little bite, but I'm sure that it is possible to be sued for blogging or operating any other web property, it just hasn't happened to me yet. If you go out of your way to slander or libel someone then of course you're just as culpable as you would be 'in real life', after all the web is an extension of real life.<p>Just like lots of other activities can get you sued. Just be a bit more careful when you criticize someone in print than you would be if you spoke out loud, that should take care of most of it. 'It is my opinion' goes a long way towards solving most of this.
I think it's not the worst idea in the world to hold people accountable for what they say. On the other hand, the legal system in most of these cases seems to serve not for the better purpose. It basically ruins people's lives and makes them spend their money to defend themselves in courts over accusations that may not pass the common sense check. Not good for economy.
I've always been a bit amazed at how many people think that writing something on the internet is safe, even if they know that writing the same thing in a magazine, or printing it up on flyers and handing them out on the street, would get them in trouble for libel.