On the Internet, where abnormal behavior is the status
quo, tempers can flare in the heat of debate and word
wars can last for days or even weeks. It's not
uncommon for users to ridicule, harass or insult those
who disagree with them.
But if you damage someone's reputation by trying to
embarrass them in a public forum, you could be sued
for libel or defamation. After all, there's no reason
to assume that the messages you send through
cyberspace are immune from lawsuits.
The Internet culture right now is for users to refute
speech with speech, says Dave Marburger, the attorney
who represented Brock Meeks in one of the first
defamation lawsuits in the United States involving
the Internet. But as the Internet culture gets more
diverse, users will start refuting speech with
lawsuits.
There have only been a handful of libel and defamation
lawsuits filed involving the Internet so far, but as
the Net grows, the number of lawsuits will probably
increase. If the few court battles that have
been decided involving libel and defamation on the Net
are any indication of how the law will be applied to
the Internet in the future, it's worth your time to
learn what's libelous or defamatory on the Internet
and what's not.
Other users have the right to sue you for defamation
if they can prove you damaged their reputation or good
name with false information. You can be sued for
libel if another user can prove you have distributed
defamatory statements about them in a public area --
such as a news group or mailing list.
In April of 1993 Gil Hardwick, an anthropologist in
Australia, was ordered by the Australian Supreme Court
to pay David Rindos $40,000 in damages because he
defamed Rindos on an international mailing list.
After Rindos lost his job at the University of West
Australia, Hardwick posted a message on an
international disscussion group that suggested Rindos
was fired because he was a bully and had sexually
molested a local boy.
Rindos filed a defamation lawsuit against Hardwick
because he felt the message had hurt his chances of
finding a new job. In a letter to Rindos's attorney,
Hardwick wrote Let this matter be expedited and
done withI can do nothing to prevent it, lacking
any resources whatsoever to defend myself. Like most
people, Hardwick didn't have the money to hire a
lawyer or finance an expensive legal battle.
He (Rindos) suffered a great deal of personal hurt
because of the message, said Supreme Court Justice
David Ipp in the West Australian.
The damages award must compensate him and vindicate
his reputation to the public.
The Internet is an informal forum and people often
write personal things about other users, but you can
be held accountable in court for making libelous or
defamatory remarks in public forums just like Hardwick
was.
We know that as the Internet grows, there will be
more and more lawsuits involving libel and
defamation, says attorney David H. Donaldson, editor
of Legal Bytes, an electronic magazine that discusses
legal issues involving computers and networking.
The only question is if the number of cases will grow
steadily or if there will be an explosion of lawsuits
all at once.
Anybody can sue you for libel or defamation if they
think you damaged their reputation, but if you can
prove what you say is true, chances are that you won't
end up in court.
Make it clear when you are stating your opinion,
says Donaldson, Always state the facts that your
opinions are based on just to be safe.
You probably won't lose a libel or defamation lawsuit
if you can back up what you write with solid facts.
For example, Brock Meeks, a full-time journalist who
also distributes his own electronic magazine, avoided
losing a defamation lawsuit largely because he could
prove an article that he sent over the Net was true.
Meeks was sued by Suarez Corporation Industries in
April of 1994 for writing an investigative story about
the company and its services in his electronic
newsletter -- the CyberWire Dispatch. Meeks had no
libel insurance, no publishing company backing him up
and a lot of legal fees to cover. (His lawyer charged
him $200 an hour.) The only thing Meeks had was his
house -- and he didn't want to sell it to pay off a
lawsuit.
Meeks defended his article in numerous posts on the
Net, All of my facts were rock solid. Although the
article was delivered with a fair amount of attitude,
I don't believe that I'm in dangerous waters, he
wrote.
Benjamin Suarez, owner of Suarez Corp., filed the suit
because he felt that Meeks had damaged his reputation
and hurt his business by saying he was infamous for
his questionable direct marketing scams,
and saying he (Suarez) has a mean streak. To back
up his opinion, Meeks cited accusations made by the
Washington state attorney general's office concerning
Suarez's direct marketing practices.
In August of 1994 Suarez Corp. made Meeks an offer he
couldn't refuse. They agreed to settle the case for
$64 -- to cover administrative
