2020-08-08 07:00:00
The years have passed since the creation of the Internet, and more and more people are exposing themselves to defamation, without necessarily knowing it or understanding how it works.
Defamation is a legal concept. Consequently, in countries where it is considered a “misdemeanor” or a “crime”, those found guilty of it may be required to appear before a judge and possibly be sentenced for words spoken or written.
Definition of defamation
There are different expressions and legal frameworks for judging defamation. An insult or a lie is not reprehensible if it does not lead to negative consequences for the victim, whether in terms of his finances, his honor, his state of health, etc. And that is often what people don’t understand. Saying someone he’s a “con” or saying he has “blonde hair” when he has brown hair can’t a priori lead to a conviction, because it doesn’t lead to serious consequences. for the person of whom we have “spoken badly”.
Defamation is either the (public) attribution of an imaginary fact to a real person, or the attribution of a real fact to a person who is not the author. For its part, slander falls under the scope of the law only if it is associated with a denunciation to the authorities: we then speak of “slanderous denunciation”.
“Defamation” is not at all new. People who visit the Mulhouse History Museum can see the “Klapperstein”, a heavy stone weighing 12 kilos. In German this name means “talkative stone”. In the Middle Ages, people found guilty of defamation were condemned to cross Mulhouse on the back of a donkey with this stone around their neck.
Whatever the country, the legislator has therefore always had the need to protect themselves from the “talkative” by instituting legal limits on freedom of expression. In 1966, the United Nations “globalized” the concept of defamation by adopting the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” which states that “ No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.“. And that the law must therefore protect people once morest such attacks.
Defamation in the United States
We speak of “defamation”, but also of “false light” laws, that is to say a fallacious way of presenting people in public or the acts they have committed. These laws are strongly counterbalanced by freedom of speech and freedom of the press which have a greater legal importance in the United States than in other countries (in the United States they are enshrined in the 1st amendment of the constitution). The “false light” differs from defamation by adding an “emotional” dimension to the harm suffered by the victim. “Defamation” will thus apply more to cases of lies, and “false light” when there is no lie, but all the same facts twisted maliciously in order to present the victim in a false or outrageous way. In which case it must be “highly offensive” (really hurtful) for the victim, not according to his own point of view, but with regard to society (and American justice).
In English, the terms “calumny”, “vilification”, “libel”, “slander” or “traducement” can also be used. Spoken defamation is often described by the term “slander”, and when it is written it is called “libel”.
There are “criminal laws” punishing defamation in only 23 states of the USA. Otherwise, in the other States it is civil proceedings. The 23 states with criminal proceedings are: Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, North Dakota, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
defamation on the internet
Yes, you can be sued in court for comments made on any web page or social network, in the United States or elsewhere. Even though this is a legal concept, you can also (usually) complain directly to social media regarding being defamed. Example here with the Facebook form
It is generally accepted that publishers and hosts cannot be prosecuted for “complicity” in the comments of a third party (such as a comment on Facebook for example), but on two conditions:
– that the publishers and hosts have not manually validated the comment in question.
– that they removed it following the authorities told them that it was illegal content.
Beyond the laws and regulations, since the creation of social networks, however, it is the fair of illegality that predominates, and everyone feels almost free to pour false news and defamation into what has been qualified of “lawless zone”. During an election period the “bashing” of politicians (when it is not hatred) leads many people to confuse insult with defamation. Nevertheless, the law does indeed apply (at least a little) on the Internet and in the case where a media is hosted on a third-party platform (Youtube, Facebook etc.), its pages and groups can be penalized if they are invaded by such words. And social networks are increasingly applying these penalties to pages containing “fake news” or illegal content. As we have seen in France with the attempted “Avia law” (June 24, 2020), governments are even trying to require social networks to do justice, police, and censorship themselves… instead of and place of public authorities.
In any case for defamation in the United States, there are more and more lawsuits involving messages on the internet. This is the case vis-à-vis minors, with what is often categorized here as “cyberbullying” (cyberharassment) which, in addition to “harassing”, generally also attacks the reputation of children / adolescents and therefore springs from public defamation. But cases between adults are not uncommon at all.
If social networks are probably living their last years of tolerance, you can in any case already be sued… And you can even be sued in Great Britain. London (once the capital of freedom of expression) has thus become the capital of English-speaking libel trials. And it is not uncommon to come across, for example, Icelanders who have lodged a complaint once morest other Icelanders. For what ? Because any complaint is now admissible once morest any publication on the Internet in English, regardless of the country where they were posted.
In any case, we can be almost certain that in the months and years to come, the legal arsenal of countries will evolve in order to be able to apply the laws more firmly on the Internet and its social networks. And this will not only be the case in matters of defamation, but also “incitement to hatred”, “harassment”, “invasion of privacy”, “violation of intellectual property” etc…
Elsewhere in the world
In some countries, even an indirect defamatory allegation can result in a conviction. French newspapers have been condemned for having used the interrogative form in titles such as: “Le deputy Untel a-il de l’argent hid en Suisse?” Moreover (and this is valid in almost all countries) generally the law applies when the person can be recognized: even if his name is not mentioned, if everyone can easily guess whose is, then a condemnation can occur.
In Canada a person accused of defamation (including journalists) can argue that a publication was in the “public interest” by providing proof that it was true. This is also the case in France, but journalists have nevertheless been sentenced there for defamation because they did not have proof of fault when they denounced it. (France is far from world champion in freedom of expression).
In Quebec, the “right to reputation” is protected by the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
The media and defamation
In some countries there is a fairly weak legal boundary between “defamation” and “image rights”. In France, for example, it is now forbidden to publish photos of a person wearing handcuffs. However, this law stops at the door of the “mass” media: if it is, for example, Minister Dominique Strauss-Khan (arrested by the New York police in May 2011) the media do not too many questions and still broadcast images where the accused does not appear in his best light.
Similarly, once more in France, the law on the “presumption of innocence” theoretically obliges the media AND individuals not to say of a person that he is guilty of an act before the justice system has definitively condemned him. for this act. This law is – once more – respected on a “case by case” basis: when it comes to a person caught in the act, the media do not ask so many questions and do not specify that the criminal is “presumed innocent” or “suspected terrorist”. However, by “forgetting” to do so, they are illegal.
In the United States, it’s simpler: the media can make mistakes without consequence. They can thus ensure that an innocent person is “guilty”. But only if they are “in good faith”. They are then protected by freedom of expression and that of the press.
Besides, it has nothing to do, but in Florida a case law of the State even stipulates that the media have the “right to lie”. Once once more, it is necessary to distinguish the “lie” from the consequences that it can entail. We therefore have a duty to tell you that… everything is true in the article you have just read! ????
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