5 ms·
"Puerile" teen FB posts not libelous - computer not "dangerous instrument"
- Unseelie 16y agoSix million strikes me as an insanely high amount to go after. Not at all a reasonable suit.
- jiganti 16y agoA very reasonable ruling, glad to a ruling that recognizes the ubiquity of computers.
- tibbon 16y agoSo if I understand properly here, it isn't libel because the statements weren't believable? If they were somewhat believable, then it would have been libel?
- sorbus 16y ago"A reasonable reader, given the overall context of the posts, simply would not believe ... that having contracted sexually transmitted diseases in such manner she morphed into the devil." So yes.
- Confusion 16y agoIANAL, but the wikipedia page for defamation[1] seems instructive. In short, for something to be defamation, the defamatory statement must be "expressly stated or implied to be factual". Another possibility would be that this was "public disclosure of private facts" So the first citation, this is not defamation, because it is not stated or implied the statement was true. It would probably be comparable to a fictional account. On the other hand, per the second citation, since it wasn't true, it wasn't unlawful "public disclosure of private facts". This seems to mean that in fiction, everything is fair game, as long as it is clear it's fiction and you don't 'accidently' include facts. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
- tibbon 16y agoThanks for the link. So if the person being trolled DID have HIV/AIDS, and they disclosed this fact publicly, then it might have been defamation right?
- jacquesm 16y agoOnly six million ? Sudden outbreaks of common sense like this should be more common. Now for the judge to sanction the lawyer that brought this silly suit, that would be justice.