Legal Geek No. 2 - Does Twibel Exist?

Welcome back to Legal Geek! The topic this week is whether defamation by libel is a threat to us on social media like Twitter.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp02

A number of libel lawsuits have been filed for social media defamation, but the first of these lawsuits to actually go to a trial finished last week. The subject of the lawsuit was Courtney Love, who had sent a tweet about her attorney claiming she had been bought off to undermine Love's legal disputes with Kurt Cobain's estate. This has become known as "Twibel" in legal circles.

Libel in the U.S. generally requires publication of a false statement about a particular person or business that seriously shames, ridicules, disgraces, or injures the plaintiff's reputation. Additionally, the defendant must be at fault, which requires only negligence in making the statement for private figures and actual malice for public officials and celebrities. 

Because the attorney allegedly defamed by Courtney Love was a so-called Limited Purpose Public Figure by her association with Love's other trials, she had to prove Love's tweet was false and also actual malice. Love convinced the jury that the tweet was not libel, likely because she thought the allegations were true when she tweeted and thus, the statement was either not false or at least, not malicious.


But Courtney Love's victory does not mean the issue of Twibel is no more. In some countries like Canada, libel does not require a false statement for legal liability, which would make it easier to prove Twibel, especially using the negligence standard for non-public figures. Expect the lawsuits to continue until some court is forced to determine if Twitter and other social media should be subject to the same libel rules as everywhere else.

If so, we all need to be careful about getting into twitter spats in the future. Especially those of you who tend to rake companies and people over the coals by Twitter shaming for perceived injustices. There's a real risk out there, much like the early 2000's when the wild west of Napster and file sharing finally found its day in court.

Don't be the example that becomes legal precedent for the rest of us. The bottom line is, treat people nicely, even on Twitter and other social media.

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