What is seditious libel?
The basic crime of sedition involves speaking or acting to incite rebellion against government authority. But under British common law, a person could be found guilty of this crime for any statement that disrespected the social hierarchy upon which the political order rested. Believing that there was a natural order to things—superiors and inferiors, rulers and subjects—British common law labeled as seditious any statement that threatened to subvert the “natural” social hierarchy. Moreover, a person could be found guilty of sedition under British law regardless of the truth, effect, or intent of the statement. This was because the courts could legally impose a “bad tendency test,” and consider what might have happened as a consequence of a statement. What actually did happen was beside the point. If the court could imagine a plausible set of negative events resulting from an individual’s statement, he could be convicted of sedition on the basis of this fabricated scenario.
