What is the “publication” of a defamatory statement?
Publication is the dissemination of the defamatory statement to any person other than the person about whom the statement is written or spoken. >>top Question: May someone other than the person who originally made the defamatory statement be legally liable in defamation? Answer: One who “publishes” a defamatory statement may be liable. However, 47 U.S.C. sec. 230 says that online service providers are not publishers of content posted by their users. Section 230 gives most ISPs and message board hosts the discretion to keep postings or delete them, whichever they prefer, in response to claims by others that a posting is defamatory or libelous. Most ISPs and message board hosts also post terms of service that give them the right to delete or not delete messages as they see fit and such terms have generally been held to be enforceable under law.
