Has Your Business Been Defamed?

24/06/09

Sarah Webb looks at how the rise in social media has led to companies' reputations increasingly being called into question.

Whilst we celebrated the fifth anniversary of Facebook this month, and the enormous growth in social networking, many businesses and their directors are not so happy at the growth of similar business networks and blogs, such as ADVFN.

These commercial websites provide instant information and valuable access to informed comment on companies and their trading positions. But what happens if a director or a company discovers that something that has been published...

...that is defamatory of either them personally or of the company. Something is defamatory if it tends to "lower you in the minds of ordinary members of society". In other words adversely affects your reputation.

Defamation comes in two forms. Libel which is a defamation in a permanent form and slander which is a defamation in a transient form. Blogs and defamatory postings on the internet are usually libels in that they are printed, published and remain for sometime. However, as Mr Justice Eady said in the case of Smith -v- ADVFN postings on such investor bulletin boards are "contributions to a casual conversation (the analogy sometimes being drawn with people chatting in a bar) which people simply note before moving on; they are often uninhibited, casual and ill-thought out". This, Mr Justice Eady went on to say, makes them "Much more akin to slanders than to the usual more permanent kind of communication found in libel actions".

The important difference between the two is that libel is actionable without proof of damage and without proof of any special circumstances, where slander is only actionable if you can prove actual... continued on page two >

 

 

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