Libel is the publication of a statement that tends to expose a person to hatred, ridicule or contempt.

 

 

 

 

 
GOSSIP AND LIBEL ON THE INTERNET
Where will it end?
Legal actions resulting from defamatory articles on the Internet are becoming an increasingly common global phenomenon and the law must now deal with a world where more and more of us use electronic media as our main source of information and vehicle for communication.

The problem is that the law relating to libel is no different whether publication is over the Internet or in more traditional hard copy formats. Yet the instant dissemination of libellous material to millions of people in a multitude of jurisdictions makes Internet libel a very different beast to deal with.

Libel is the publication of a statement that tends to expose a person to hatred, ridicule or contempt.

The general principle remains that the victim’s cause of action arises against the publisher where publication takes place. It is

which is giving sleepless nights to publishers and to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and rightly gives rise to the question “Where will it end?”
Authors who post material on the Internet may find themselves the subject of proceedings in foreign jurisdictions, even if the material does not offend the law where it is posted. Likewise, ISPs may similarly find themselves subject to an action for defamation.
In a world where there is no unified approach to libel it is, for example, the case that a publisher of defamatory material will have an easier ride in the US, where freedom of speech is the by-word and offenders have the benefit of defences not available in, say, the UK or Australia, which have far stricter libel laws.

Little wonder, therefore in Dow Jones –v- Gutnick that Dow Jones, publishers of Barron’s Online magazine,

 
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