What is internet libel?
Libel is the publication of a defamatory statement in permanent form, which includes publication on the internet. A statement is defamatory if it lowers the claimant in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally. Potential liability To be successful in a defamation action, a claimant must show that the alleged defamatory statement: • is defamatory (in accordance with the test above) • identifies the claimant • is published to a third party by the defendant. Therefore, for a defendant to be liable, it must be a ‘publisher’ of the defamatory statement. It should be noted that a publisher is anyone who participated in the publication of the defamatory statement. This would include an educational institution that hosted a website on which the defamatory statement was posted. The claimant could also sue the person who posted the statement, for example, a student. However, this person may be difficult to identify (often postings are anonymous) and will almost certainly hav
