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Love Twitter Defamation
Thumper’s law: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all”.
The cost of not being nice was recently measured in a recent social media defamation settlement. The New York Times (among others) recently reported a $430,000.00 settlement was reached in Simorangkir v. Love.
The Citizen Media Law Project has a great deal of information on this saga, including pleadings.
I would like to see a judicial decision address the issue of whether there is defamation via a 140 character tweet. I don’t think media reports of a settlement are quite enough to settle this argument. Or are they? I look forward to being educated through comments.
Praise the truth! Why couldn’t a 140 character blurb be considered libel? If one were to go about ranting and insulting someone else in public it would be considered slander, would it not? Since this is published, does that not make it libel? Twitter is a public forum, open for anyone to read. It’s influence is certainly recognized now aroudn the world. Defamation through tweeting surely must fall into place of recognized litigation.
Plus, just be talking about here, commenting on its significance, are we not partaking in this whole affair of public recognition of such judicial decisions? Law has been served, in my opinion.