Next time you’re thinking of taking a pot shot at someone in your blog, through Facebook or through an online forum, think twice about what you write.
Bloggers, website owners and indeed anybody who publishes content online need to be aware of Ireland’s new defamation law, which came into force this month.
A conference on the Defamation Act 2009, organised by Hayes Solicitors, heard that the new legislation is as relevant to both professional and amateur publishers who publish content online as it is to newspapers and other traditional media organisations.
While the latter have procedures in place to prevent costly defamation actions, the same does not apply in the online world.
Indeed, from AMAS’s own experience, even large corporates and government bodies are vulnerable – many people who now work in online marketing or communications roles and are publishing to websites often have no formal publishing training and don’t have a grounding in the basics of defamation.
Hayes partner David Phelan said that the new Act doesn’t materially change what is deemed to be actionable defamation but it does introduce a number of technical changes about defences, remedies and procedures.
Some of those changes have been introduced to ensure that the law catches up with what’s happening in the digital world.
Given the volume of online content, and the highly personalised and damaging nature of some of this content, it is seen as inevitable that more defamation cases will be taken.
Whether the plaintiffs go the distance to a full court hearing is less certain, given that many online publishing ventures are not well funded.
That said, expect to see more solicitors’ letters flying about and more publishers withdrawing the offending content – and even apologising.
Read details of the new Defamation Act
Tags: blogs, Defamation Act, forums, online content, online marketing
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