Topic: Defamation

Social media and difficulties of a TRO in defamation actions

By Susan Ross (US) on May 5, 2022 Posted in Defamation

Companies—especially those based outside the U.S.—sometimes ask why it is so difficult to bring a lawsuit based on something posted on social media. A recent federal court case from California can help show how courts view these actions. Prehired, LLC, v. Provins, No. 2:22-cv-00384-TLN-AC (E.D. Cal. April 12, 2022) (2022 WL 1093237).… Continue reading

Deepfakes: Fake videos need real remedy

By Daniel Daniele (CA) on October 10, 2019 Posted in Defamation

Your friend tells you they saw a video of you on social media. You look it up. The person in that video looks like you. That person even sounds like you. To make matters worse the video shows this counterfeit version of you doing something incredibly embarrassing. You have never done what the video is … Continue reading

Internet reviews and the Communications Decency Act of 1996

By Caleb Segrest (US) on August 21, 2018 Posted in Defamation

We have previously written about the U.S. legal landscape regarding consumers’ rights to post negative reviews of products or services on the internet, including some of the implications of the Consumer Review Fairness Act on these rights. The Consumer Review Fairness Act was passed in December of 2016 in response to some businesses’ efforts to … Continue reading

WhatsApp group administrators may be responsible for members’ content

By Megan Claassens (SA) and Sinal Govender (SA) on May 30, 2017 Posted in Defamation

In India, an administrator of a Whatsapp group has recently faced arrest, following the sharing of what is alleged to be a defamatory photo-shopped image of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. South Africa has yet to test the liability of a group admin with regard to what is shared on their group. However, given the rise … Continue reading

Germany considers € 50 million fines for social media sites failing to remove hate speech

By Sven Jacobs (DE) on April 28, 2017 Posted in Defamation

The German Justice Ministry has introduced a draft law that would impose fines of up to €50 million on social media companies that fail to remove hate speech and other illegal content from their platforms quickly. The fines would be imposed whenever social media companies do not remove online threats, hate speech, or slanderous fake … Continue reading

Who is Fact Checking the Fact Checkers?

By Daniel Daniele (CA) on April 4, 2017 Posted in Defamation, Privacy

With the proliferation of so-called “fake news”, companies are starting to rely on third party organizations to perform a “fact checking” function in order to distinguish between legitimate news and fake news. The fake news epidemic gained traction in the recent US presidential election. We have previously written about the fake news problem, as well … Continue reading

UK Government seeks to tackle the “fake news” problem

By Farah Mukaddam (UK) on March 8, 2017 Posted in Defamation

In the past, concerns regarding news focussed on traditional media (typically newspapers and broadcasters) and the role they played in curating and controlling public information and sentiment. In recent months, the focus has shifted to the distribution of news on the internet and social media and the so-called ‘fake news’ problem.… Continue reading

Risks of unlawful social media content: changes in UK defamation landscape and what you need to know

By Joanna Conway (UK) on February 16, 2017 Posted in Defamation, Litigation, Privacy

A carefully curated social media presence is a critical business requirement, but there are risks. One of these risks is unlawful content – be that unlawful content posted to your businesses’ own social media account (exposing the company to potential liability) or harmful content about your business (or its C-Suite or key personnel) posted on … Continue reading

The edit button: can the past be erased?

By Daniel Daniele (CA) on January 4, 2017 Posted in Defamation, Privacy

Social media users have a new demand for 2017 – they want the ability to edit their public messages. Spelling mistakes, missing words and misplaced pronouns can have embarrassing, unintended and sometimes dangerous consequences. The ability to edit one’s message is an attractive feature. This request has led some users on the social media platform … Continue reading

President Obama signs the “Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016”

By Caleb Segrest (US) on December 19, 2016 Posted in Defamation

On Thursday, December 15, 2016, President Obama signed into law H.R. 5111, now officially titled the “Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016.” The substantive provisions of the bill, which we discussed in a previous post, are virtually unchanged, but the law’s text provides further details regarding enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission and the states. … Continue reading

Fact Or Fiction: The Fake News Problem

By Mayura Noordyke (US) on December 10, 2016 Posted in Defamation

In the few months leading up to the United States election, social media was flooded with articles with sensationalized titles and incendiary content. Many of these “news” stories were fake. They were written for the purpose of swaying public opinion or generating a profit from ad revenue and were often published by sham entities or … Continue reading

U.S. House takes steps to protect consumers’ rights to post negative reviews

By Caleb Segrest (US) on November 28, 2016 Posted in Defamation

We have all seen the reviews of products or services that disgruntled consumers post on review sites such as Yelp. Lately, however, some consumers have faced lawsuits for violating “gag orders,” or non-disparagement clauses, found in agreements between businesses and consumers. These clauses restrict consumers’ ability to publish any negative criticism about their experiences and … Continue reading

Willful act and business activity exclusions in defamation claim

By Susan Ross (US) and Nerushka Bowan on September 7, 2016 Posted in Defamation

Although we have covered many social media cases involving defamation claims (just click on the “Defamation” category to see them), here is a link to a post from one of our sister blogs (Financial Institutions Legal Snapshot) that relates to an issue we thought would be of interest to our readers: insurance coverage for fake … Continue reading

Liability for friends’ defamatory statements

By Brian Chau (CA) on May 5, 2016 Posted in Defamation

Liability for third-party defamatory comments on one’s personal account, whether on Facebook or another internet-based platform, is an emerging legal issue in Canadian law. If a social media “friend” posts defamatory statements about another person on your profile, or other site, can you be personally liable to the defamed person? Do you have any obligation … Continue reading

Social media overload

By Daniel Daniele (CA) on April 19, 2016 Posted in Defamation, General, Social media policies

The explosion of social media in the past decade has caused a major shift in the way we conduct our affairs. In particular, businesses have been required to adapt to new ways of communicating with their clients. At a rate of thousands of social media applications surfacing each month, and new legal issues surrounding the … Continue reading

Social media users responsible for comments

By Edward Odendaal (AU) and Kerri Gevers (SG) on April 4, 2016 Posted in Defamation

The High Court of South Africa ruled in Isparta v Richter that a Facebook user was guilty of defamation because a defamatory post appeared on his Facebook wall and was not removed by him, even though he was not the author of the post. The court ruled that because he knew of the post and … Continue reading

Social Media Stars and Defamation

By James Leito on March 31, 2016 Posted in Defamation

This blog recently discussed regular people who have become internet sensations through the use of social media. Chiara Ferragni, for example, started a fashion blog in 2009. She is now a multimillionaire with approximately 5,000,000 Instagram followers. Tay Zonday posted his song “Chocolate Rain” on YouTube in 2007, which led to numerous appearances on daytime … Continue reading

We’re back, with our top five social media stories of 2015

By Susan Ross (US), Nerushka Bowan, Mayura Noordyke (US) and Karen Sie (CA) on February 3, 2016 Posted in Copyright, Defamation, Employment and labor, Fraud, General, Privacy, Security

The Social Media Law Bulletin is back! The ongoing interest of our readers as well as the increasing impact of social media led us to re-launch the Social Media Law Bulletin. We will be bringing you coverage of one or two items approximately each week, but in the meantime, we thought we would give you … Continue reading

Legal blogs and protected speech

By James Leito on January 14, 2015 Posted in Defamation

In Huon v. Breaking Media, LLC, the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that federal law protects internet publishers from defamation claims based on content posted by commenters to online news stories (See Memorandum Opinion and Order, No. 1:11-cv-03054 (Dec. 4, 2014)). In Huon, the plaintiff sued the popular online legal blog … Continue reading

Online v. Offline Agreements: Braverman v. Yelp

By Susan Ross (US) on March 17, 2014 Posted in Defamation, Litigation

A New York state trial court recently ruled in a long-running dispute between a cosmetic dentist and Yelp, the online consumer review site. Braverman v. Yelp, Inc., No. 158299-2013 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Feb. 24, 2014). The dentist originally complained that Yelp had defamed him by permitting negative reviews about him to appear on Yelp’s site. That claim … Continue reading