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On a side note, I'm thinking about starting a blog to review products and businesses. But I'm kind of worried about this kind of stuff. If I report a true inc
by tocomment 17y ago
On a side note, I'm thinking about starting a blog to review products and businesses. But I'm kind of worried about this kind of stuff. If I report a true incident that happened at a business (e.g., Best Buy not accepting a returned computer because I installed software on it), is there any danger of libel suits?
- TallGuyShort 17y agoIf you were to get a twitter following like this suit is getting - my bet is they'll drop the suit. In any case - it's not libel if it's factual information that benefits consumers. That's free speech. Libel is like calling a political opponent a child molester just to give him bad publicity.
- dkokelley 17y agoIt doesn't even have to benefit consumers (I'm pretty sure). If it's true, it's free speech. Now the question is, was the apartment moldy?
- TallGuyShort 17y agoJust to clarify - I didn't mean to say that benefiting consumers is a necessary attribute - it just adds weight to their case. Wanting to silence such speech would be against consumers interests (and in this case - health/safety) and would surely be protected speech.
- karzeem 17y agoI'm not a lawyer, but under U.S. law, libel generally means that you've written something you knew to be false, or should have known to be false, and that you had malicious intent in doing so. There are some exceptions (e.g. food libel), but as a defendant in a libel case, you're usually better off in the U.S. than in most developed countries.
- tokenadult 17y agoYes, generally truth is a defense to a defamation action in the United States, by a precedent that goes back to colonial times, so when you publish, what you have to do to protect yourself is make reasonable efforts to publish true rather than false statements.