By Peter Smith
What’s Courtney Love have to do with science writing? Well, she’s the poster child for the perils of defamatory speech on social media. (She recently settled for $430,000 after a series of online slurs appeared in her Twitter feed.)
At a Saturday afternoon session on social media and the law, the panel’s take-home message was simple: No matter how short the story, you’re not exempt from legal challenge. Clay Calvert, a law professor at University of Florida, said, “Defamation can go on just as easily on Twitter and Instagram just as newspaper or traditional magazine.”
Defamation is a false statement of fact that damages an individual's or organization’s reputation. To qualify as defamatory speech — slander (oral) or libel (written) — it must be published. Even if your message goes out to an audience of one, even if the defamatory statement is not your own, you are not relieved of liability. Under the law, in other words, a direct message or a retweet qualifies. “That’s all you need for publication,” Calvert said. “It’s very easily satisfied.” When you start quoting sources who have an ax to grind, he said, the law essentially says you’re repeating what they are saying. A retraction does not legally clear you of defamation, though, it may limit the damages.
You do not need to name the person: If you describe a person anonymously but others can figure out who that person is, it’s can still be defamatory. Jennifer Mansfield, a Florida lawyer, described a recent case where Gawker Media republished an altered high school yearbook photo of a student lifting up her dress at graduation. The site did so knowing that the image false—which, Mansfield said, “is a bad thing to do in defamation law.” Even though they didn’t use her name, if you were in her class, she would have been identifiable and that was enough of identification under the law.
When it comes to online comments, which the Communications Decency Act treats as a kind of electronic bulletin board, the panel said publishers and bloggers are usually protected—unless substantial edits are made to those comments or in cases when a website knowingly solicited its users to violate the law.
Social media is not going away and, in short, the principles of good journalism still apply.
For additional information, the panel highlight the following resources:
- Media Law Resource Center: http://www.medialaw.org
- Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press: http://www.rcfp.org
- Digital Media Law Project: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/dmlp
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