# libel on a blog?



## ShadyBrady (31 May 2010)

Is it libel of you post on a blog that MR x admitted doing Y if there is an existing link to his admission. can you say Mr x admitted y see link.com
and then quote a sentence or two. A friend is doing a blog where he will be criticizing someone who said something and now tries to pretend he didn't


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## MANTO (31 May 2010)

I would presume once you quote from a source and provide a valid reference / link to your source you are not liable? I stand corrected though.


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## nuac (1 Jun 2010)

Be careful.   If in doubt, leave out.


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## Estelle (1 Jun 2010)

I would be very careful if I were your friend. Ireland is known to have some quite tight libel laws. Infact in recent times Fintan O' Toole of the Irish Times has complained that laws are so tight here that they are hampering legitimate investigative journalism. 

In Ireland the burden of absolute proof is generally placed with the person making the allegation . Even when printing the truth you have to be very careful not to allow your own opinion to guide the tone of the piece you are writing to the extent that it may ad a complexion to statements made by the person that casts them in an inaccurate light. If you are intending to create a blog entry where you identify any person or business and accuse them of dishonesty or attribute motives to them that are not absolutely provable you could find yourself in deep water. 
When I say "identify" I don't just mean name the person. If the person can be identified by description of their role within a business for example, you can still find yourself in trouble.

I don't know if your friends blog is an anonymous blog but it would be worth letting him/her know that there really is no such thing as complete anonymity online. If a business or individual person takes issue with what you are writing and has just grounds for a complaint then there are ways to identify you.

I agree with above poster : if in any doubt then protect yourself and leave it out.


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## tenchi-fan (1 Jun 2010)

I think if you seem to remain impartial and only quote what is reported, giving a balance viewed, you should be fine!

So instead of :
MR x admitted doing Y .. click here for more.

You could write:
"MR x admitted doing Y" reports Source. However when we spoke to Mr X he said "." 

Something like that might do it!


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## Latrade (2 Jun 2010)

The whole libel area is a mess in the internet age. While you may tick all the boxes for complying with the law here, there's the UK which has become a hotbed for libel tourism. I.e. a case wouldn't stand in the US courts, but because the article is on the internet and available in the UK, they bring the case there where it is much harder (and expensive) for the author to defend.

Having said that, even in areas like the UK, it's all about just stating what can be quantified and qualified as fact. Quoting another source will help, but it then depends on what context and what opinion the author gives to that quote. 

So let's say that Mr X lied on record in the past. We can say, with quotes that Mr X lied and can conlcude he's a liar. However, if we're discussing a current statement from Mr X our intention might be to quote his previous lie and then state or suggest he's lying in his current statement. That may cause problems, the previous context may have no bearing on what he is currently saying.

You'd probably have to say, Mr X, who lied about Y (with link and quote) states Z.


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## RIAD_BSC (2 Jun 2010)

Your obligations are the same as as a newspaper's. If you are making an allegation, you must be able to stand over it completely and be able to prove, in court if necessary, that the allegation is correct. The burden of proof is on the publisher to do this. You can't just hint at an allegation and hope that people put 2 and 2 together. If your friend writing the blog cannot prove that the allegation is correct, s/he should not print in on the blog. If Mr X is denying that he said what your friend maintains he said, and your friend can't can't definitively prove otherwise, then your friend is wide open for a libel case.


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## JoeB (2 Jun 2010)

I think the libel laws also apply to people who repeat libelous material from another source... 

This means that if something is printed in a newspaper, and it's repeated by other newspapers, then the other newspapers have also libelled the original person if the claims made subsequently turn out to be false, or libelous.

I'm not 100% sure about this but it did come up recently and that seemed to be the situation.


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## Estelle (2 Jun 2010)

I may be reading too much into your original post OP but I get the impression that your friend intends to write a blog entry about an allegation of lying that has already been addressed by the person he is writing about.

Like for example if the person being accussed is saying "I never did Y " then he may have addressed the allegation already. If it's the case that the allegation in question has already been answered or explained then unless you have fresh evidence PROVING that it's true you could be seen to have an intention to mislead in your article . That would make a libel case against your friend alot stronger and is another thing your friend should be mindful of.


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## rockofages (2 Jun 2010)

If the blog site is outside the jurisdiction (and outside the EU, e.g in the US) I understand that nothing can be done really. This is how www.rate-your-solicitor.com manages to steer clear of trouble.


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## Estelle (6 Jun 2010)

rockofages said:


> If the blog site is outside the jurisdiction (and outside the EU, e.g in the US) I understand that nothing can be done really. This is how www.rate-your-solicitor.com manages to steer clear of trouble.



If this were a fool proof method of publishing would it not make sense that newspapers would use it to their advantage by having an online pay per view supplement to their papers hosted on foreign servers where they said whatever the liked and got away with it ? 

They'd make a fortune. Maybe I should suggest it to someone! 

I am unsure of the exact legalities here but I'd hasten to bet that doing this would not allow one open season on the reputation of any person within Ireland.


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## rockofages (6 Jun 2010)

Did you check out the site I mentioned? I think people have been pretty open season on it!


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## Pat Bateman (7 Jun 2010)

I've read that you're ok if you say "W is reporting that Mr X did Y to Mr Z". However, as other have stated this areas a minefield. When in doubt, say nowt!


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## RIAD_BSC (9 Jun 2010)

Pat Bateman said:


> I've read that you're ok if you say "W is reporting that Mr X did Y to Mr Z". However, as other have stated this areas a minefield. When in doubt, say nowt!


 
This isn't true. If you report that someone else has reported an incident, and somebody is libelled out of it, you are just as culpabale. You have to be able to stand over what was said, even if you weren't the first to say it.


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## RIAD_BSC (9 Jun 2010)

rockofages said:


> If the blog site is outside the jurisdiction (and outside the EU, e.g in the US) I understand that nothing can be done really. This is how www.rate-your-solicitor.com manages to steer clear of trouble.


 

This is also not true. Both the publisher of the information and the author can be sued for libel. If the publisher (the wesbite and also the hosting company) is outside the jurisdiction, then fair enough, it can't be sued. But if the author is identifiable and located within the jurisdiction, then s/he can be sued, no matter where the publisher is located.

Rate-your-solicitor etc only get away with it because the authors can't be identified.


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## Pat Bateman (9 Jun 2010)

RIAD_BSC said:


> This isn't true. If you report that someone else has reported an incident, and somebody is libelled out of it, you are just as culpabale. You have to be able to stand over what was said, even if you weren't the first to say it.


 
Are you sure?

Say you state on your website that X is a fraudster.

Then I report on my website that RIAD_BSC is claiming that X is a fraudster.

Logically, how can I be culpable? What I've reported is factual. I haven't commented on the accuracy of the allegation made by you. I've merely reported that an allegation has been made by you (which is the case).


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## rockofages (10 Jun 2010)

RIAD_BSC said:


> If the publisher (the wesbite and also the hosting company) is outside the jurisdiction, then fair enough, it can't be sued.





RIAD_BSC said:


> But if the author is identifiable and located within the jurisdiction, then s/he can be sued, no matter where the publisher is located.


True if the author can be identified without doubt. If I post something and deny it, it is nearly impossible to prove it was me, especially if the access logs etc (ie evidence) are in another jurisdiction.

I'm curious if anyone has ever been successfully sued in this jurisdiction for libel on the internet. Have any cases ever even gone to court?


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## csirl (10 Jun 2010)

Pat Bateman said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> Say you state on your website that X is a fraudster.
> 
> ...


 
You can be culpable if it is reasonable to assume that you suspected that RIAD-BSC wasnt telling the truth. Quoting some else isnt an automatic "free pass" when it comes to libel.


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## nuac (10 Jun 2010)

I agree with Csirl.

Do not speak or write ill of any living person.


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## RIAD_BSC (10 Jun 2010)

Pat Bateman said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> Say you state on your website that X is a fraudster.
> 
> ...


 

You are culpable because you reported an untrue allegation. It doesn't matter that you are reporting what someone else has reported first. If you report an allegation, you must be able to stand it up. This is why, when the existence of a libel dispute is being reported, other newspapers very often don't report the actual details of the libel. They don't want to be sued for repeating it. The only time the whole libel can be reported in these cases is when it is aired in open court under privellege.

Also, Csirl, you are dead right when you say it isn't an automatic free pass. But it also doesn't matter whether or not you suspect what was said was true, or that the original reporter was telling the truth. All that matters is the pure fact that you repeated a libel, and nothing else.

There are only a few acceptable defences to libel

1 - Absolute truth (and then the onus is on you to prove that what you said was true)

2 - Fair comment (you have to prove that what you said was a reasonable thing to say - it can only be used for opinion pieces, where for example, you called someone a "fool" or something like that and they sued. Fair comment can't be used where the defamation was presented as a statement of fact in a news story)

3 - Privellege (i.e. Dail comments, open court comments, affidavits etc etc...)

You can't use "it wasn't me that said it first" as a defence, even if you are only saying "X has said Y about Z". If X libelled Z, then you libelled him too by reporting his libel. Otherwise Z's reputation would continue to get damaged by the story being repeated over and over by secondary publications, and Z would have no way of stopping it.


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