Slate Magazine: A British politician is seeking damages from high-profile Twitter users who repeated or retweeted a false report linking him to child sex abuse. The former Conservative Party official, Alistair McAlpine, is also asking lower-profile Twitter users who libeled him to apologize and make a donation to charity. The United Kingdom is notorious for its plaintiff-friendly defamation laws—but what about in the United States? Could an American be sued for libel based on tweets, too?
5 comments:
This is really scary. Personally most of my status updates on Facebook are general and never involve a person and I do not tweet. But this could be bad news for many people out there. Ok so my brain goes to worst case scenario and it is awful. This could prove to be something very interesting in the near future. No telling how many slanderous and libel tweets there were a few weeks ago about the presidential campaign. I think this is something parents need to makes sure and educate their children on so some situation does not accidentally arise. So who knows what is going to happen. But need to be careful out there.
This is definitely scary and something to think about. When Facebook first came out, it was only allowed for college students to create profiles. Gradually, however, Facebook has spread to just about everyone in the world. Today, technology and computers has the potential to make our lives easier, but it also has the power to negatively impact our lives. For example, my little brother is in middle school, and all of his friends have Facebook accounts. There have been instances where people he knows have been punished in school for cyber-bullying. Now, this is on a much smaller scale than a lawsuit, but it is still serious. Parents nowadays definitely need to take the internet seriously and educate their kids on the dangers of the internet, because everything posted on the internet is permanent.
This whole article just goes to show how important it is for everyone to be careful about what they say and what they share on social media. I was surprised to learn that the United States' libel laws are more lenient than the United Kingdom's. It is pretty terrifying that people who re-tweeted something in the U.K. can be sued for it! (Are they going to be given the chance to prove that whether they thought the statement was true or not?) The United States' policies are still pretty strict, though, and (rightfully) make the whole process of libel cases easier on the defendant. There are a lot of "gray areas" when it comes to what is or is not acceptable on the internet and in public forums these days- this article gives some great reasons for not posting anything you might question or might hesitate to post. (I would like to add that it is ridiculous for high-profile celebrities to use social media to attack others- they are in the public eye constantly, especially online. Who do they think they're gonna fool? Just because some people might agree with their libelous statements does not mean that they can or should be able to get away with them.)
This always freaked me out about Twitter. It is so easy to spread misinformation. Just because you write 140 characters does not mean that they are true, and because it is so easy to re-tweet anything why not just re-copy something that you like and move on. This happened with the Occupy movement, a lot of false information was spread to a lots of people. I think that people shouldn't tweet or re-tweet anything that they are not positive is true or if they must then say that they are unsure that it is true.
People being responsible for what they say? What a novel concept. When you put something out on the internet you cannot take it back. It can be hurtful and damaging if it its untrue and detrimental to someone’s character or career it is only right that a person should be responsible for that. Libel and slander has been a common social phenomenon and a powerful political and business tool. But, where as a he said-she said could be very hard to trace. Facebook has a mechanism to track it. The internet should not just be a free for all that it has been for the last decade. I worked for a theatre that did school assembly shows on internet bulling. We said things like, “Think before you send”, “don’t say anything that you would not say to a person face to face.” and “the internet is not anonymous.” We as a society have kinda broken off our relationship with truth and integrity. I am not usually a fan of regulation but I am a fan of doing the right thing. I support prosecuting over what someone says on the FB.
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