There's a lot to unpack here... Defamation is not a criminal offense. Nobody goes to jail for defamation. You can be sued for damages from defamation in civil

There's a lot to unpack here... Defamation is not a criminal offense. Nobody goes to jail for defamation. You can be sued for damages from defamation in civil court. I never said what I wanted, or gave any opinion. I'm just adding a bit of color to the conversation by stating relevant facts. The accusatory tone is not very conducive to interesting discussion. More to your question, I highly doubt upvoting a reddit post counts as dissemination / publishing. The comments people wrote could themselves be defamatory, but I also doubt a reddit comment will cause demonstrable damages to a person's reputation. There has to be damages for you be sued, otherwise there is no reason for the suit. I don't know the article you are referring to, but something to the general effect of "The government did a bad thing" is not defamation either. Again, you have to cause demonstrable damages to an individual for them to win a suit against you. If the article was something closer to "The government did a bad thing, This is the person responsible, This is where he lives, Let's get him fired", or if the reddit comments were of that flavor (as they often are), the case for defamation is a little stronger.