Defamation Actions Research Articles

Defamation of governments and government enterprises

This article examines the law on whether a governmental body or a commercial enterprise owned by a government can maintain an action for defamation. It is now widely accepted that a government cannot sue for defamation. But this is not a unanimous view. The extent to which the bar to governmental defamation actions applies to government-owned enterprises is uncertain. In the reported cases, courts have rejected defamation actions by government-owned commercial enterprises. However, government ownership should not categorically prevent a corporation from having the remedies for false defamatory statements available to other corporations.

Adapting the Past: Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Collaboration

This article reproduces the lecture delivered at the Brontë Society’s Annual General Meeting in 2024. Examining established views of Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), it makes two research-based propositions: 1) Gaskell derived the bulk of its content from exchanges with Charlotte Brontë, and 2) the pejorative nature of its reputation originates in unchallenged condemnations made on publication in 1857. It shows that criticisms of The Life often rest on the following assumptions: that complaints of slander from then-living individuals are accepted at face value, that Gaskell fictionalised events, and that the book’s assumed unreliability is confirmed by Gaskell’s public apologies and redactions. By interrogating these with reference to the written record, the lecture argues that the original complaints of slander cannot be upheld, that Gaskell’s research was comprehensive, and that her public admissions were performative concessions to prevent defamation actions and cannot be considered incontrovertible.

Safeguard Business and Personal Reputations Using the Sharp Tool of a Defamation Action

Safeguard Business and Personal Reputations Using the Sharp Tool of a Defamation Action

Working on scorched earth: Contemporary risks of higher education leadership critique through autoethnography

ABSTRACT Organisational autoethnographers in higher education weave compelling stories to connect their personal experiences to phenomena, often to illuminate or challenge extant norms in the culture and leadership of universities. While much has been written about the strengths and limitations of this method, there are emerging risks that may be poorly understood. While some autoethnographies in higher education have already led to unfavourable professional consequences, the growing prevalence of non-disparagement clauses in higher education employment contracts and separation agreements, and the surge in civil defamation action in society more broadly, may pose significant risks for researchers in this space. This research article blends autoethnography with consideration of these emerging risks, and while there is a focus on implications for Australian academics, these risks are not unique to this context, holding international relevance. Scholars may need to liaise with university policy makers and legal professionals to develop a best practice model for autoethnography that can enable researchers to be open about their experiences without fear of reprisal. Where overarching codes, models or policies exist that have nationwide buy in, universities may need to be brought to account to engage more sincerely and comprehensively with them.

“A public orgy of misogyny”: gender, power, media, and legal spectacle in Depp v Heard

ABSTRACT Possibly no other media event has given rise to the widespread ridiculing of domestic violence as the livestreaming of Johnny Depp’s defamation action against his former wife Amber Heard. This article analyses the social media commentary surrounding a Tik Tok released by the Milani cosmetic company, which used the attacks on Heard as an advertising opportunity. The paper contextualises Milani’s intervention in the case within the wider social media commentary targeting Heard’s makeup and appearance and maps its aftermath in the emergence of a cross-platform hashtag #BruiseKit that generated a series of viral posts and videos featuring young women painting fake bruises on their faces. It concludes that the largescale diffusion of reactionary gender ideologies evidenced in the media data was partly shaped by commercial interests and platform incentives, but not—for the most part—driven by formal political actors. Rather, misogyny was commodified. It was produced and consumed as a form of entertainment.

Comparison of Forensic Tools on Social Media Services Using the Digital Forensic Research Workshop Method (DFRWS)

Social media applications currently play a role and become part of various human activities, on the other hand social media is also very vulnerable to various crimes. Some crimes on social media can be in the form of hate speech, defamation, fraud, gambling, pornography, and other harmful actions. This research applies the Digital Forensic Research Workshop (DFRWS) method to search for all data on twitter social media services running on the Android operating system using MOBILedit Forensic Express and Belkasoft Evidence Center tools. Twitter social media services in this research are used for activities by utilizing all the features in it. Activities carried out by twitter users become evidence that will be acquired using MOBILedit Forensic Express and Belkasoft Evidence Center tools. From the two tools used, a comparison was obtained that MOBILedit Forensic Express found more data on twitter social media than Belkasoft Evidence Center, the findings in these two tools made several contributions to social media investigations that run on the android operating system

Permanent Injunctions in Defamation Actions

Permanent Injunctions in Defamation Actions

Disfemia dalam Kolom Komentar Akun Youtube Najwa Shihab

This article examines the use of dysphemia in the comments column of Najwa Shihab's youtube account "Reformation Test". The comment column is a virtual interaction space for netizens. Every netizen can comment in the public space freely. Freedom to comment in the next section leads to the use of dysphemia. Dysphemia is an effort to replace words that mean smooth or ordinary with words that mean rude. There are two problem formulations in this article. 1) what is the form of dysphemia in the comment column of Najwa Shihab's youtube account "Reformation Test" 2) what are the characteristics of hate speech in the column Comments on Najwa Shihab's youtube account "Reformation Test" in terms of the use of dysphemia. The theory used is semantic theory, especially dysphemia. Data collection is carried out by the listening method, free to engage in conversation. Data analysis is carried out using the agih method with the determining element sorting technique (PUP). Presentation analysis results are presented informally and formally. The results of the 70 data showed that the use of dysphemia was dominated by the word form with 36 data. Dysphemia in the form of 26 data phrases, then 2 data in the form of clause dysphemia. The last 6 data form of sentence dysphemia. The existence of this form of dysphemia is intended to sharpen and strengthen the meaning in the commentary aspect. The characteristics of hate speech in the comments column of Najwa Shihab's youtube account "Reformation Test" in terms of the use of dysphemia are divided into four characteristics, namely insults, defamation, provocation, and unpleasant actions.

Permanent Injunctions in Defamation Actions

Permanent Injunctions in Defamation Actions

ДЛИННАЯ РУКА ДЕЛИКТНОГО ПРАВА. КОМПЕТЕНЦИЯ СУДОВ США В ДИФФАМАЦИОННЫХ ИСКАХ ПРОТИВ ИНОСТРАННЫХ ОТВЕТЧИКОВ

Jurisdiction of American state courts over out-of-state defendants is determined by state law, but is limited by constitutional considerations. If the defendant does not have sufficient contacts with the state, it is unconstitutional for the state court to consider the dispute. With respect to defamation suits, not only does the defamatory information actually reach a sufficient number of state residents, but also the foreign defendant’s purposeful actions directed at that state are necessary for state court jurisdiction over the out-ofstate defendant to arise. In the case of the media, such a purposeful action might be, for example, selling a significant number of copies of a magazine in that state or advertising its website in that state. However, the posting of defamatory information on a website available in that state does not, by itself, create jurisdiction over the publisher in state courts. If, for example, a foreign-language website describes events outside the United States, a U.S. court would probably not have jurisdiction, even if the plaintiff’s reputation in the United States was damaged. But if an English-language publication on some website intentionally defames a state resident by describing his or her activities in that state, the publication will likely be found to be “directed at” that state, and a state court will consider the defamation claim. The plaintiff’s location in this state in a defamation action is not sufficient to give rise to state court jurisdiction over a defendant who does not have sufficient minimal contacts in the state. To hear such a dispute in that state would violate the defendant’s constitutional right to “due process” because of the burdensome nature of his participation in the process.

DETERMINING THE MEANING OF AN INNUENDO: CAN THE CONTEXT BE SEPARATED FROM THE WORDS?

Defamation can be said to mean the wrongful and intentional publication of defamatory material which refers to a plaintiff. In orderfor liability to arise in a defamation action there must be publication of defamatory material which refers to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff bears the onus of proving this. From the plaintiff’s perspective, the publication requirement entails a factual enquiry, whilst the determination of whether the publication was defamatory is more complex. To determine whether a publication is defamatory one has to, firstly, establish the meaning of the publication, and secondly, decide whether the meaning of the publication contained a defamatory imputation. However, this enquiry to establish the meaning of the material in question can become complicated considering that words may have more than one meaning and plaintiffs are entitled to rely on the secondary meaning of the words (also known as innuendos) in defamation actions. Recently the Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) was called upon to decide the correctness of a High Court’s approach in determining the meaning of an innuendo (Molotlegi v Mokwalase [2010] 4 All SA 258 (SCA)). In the High Court a separation of issues order was granted with the effect that the meaning of the innuendo in question had to be established without any regard to the context in which the words were uttered. This note will therefore consider whether a separation of issues, that is, separating the determination of the meaning of the words from the context in which they were uttered, would be appropriate in defamation cases where the secondary meaning of the words is relied upon by the plaintiff. In what follows, we shall consider what an innuendo is, the court’s approach to determining the meaning of innuendos, the legal principles underlying aseparation of issues order, and the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Molotlegi v Mokwalase (supra).

Defences in An Action for Defamation

Defences in An Action for Defamation

Defamation Actions and Australian Politics (UNSW Law Journal Forum, 2021, forthcoming)

Defamation Actions and Australian Politics (UNSW Law Journal Forum, 2021, forthcoming)

Assess of Forensic Tools on Android Based Facebook Lite with the NIST Method

The increase in social media use of Facebook lite by using Android-based smartphones is quite high. Activities when communicating through the social media network Facebook Lite Facebook lite can send a text message, image, or Video. Not a few users of Facebook lite social media abusing this app to commit fraud crimes, pornographic acts, or defamation actions from social media users Facebook lite. In such cases, it can be a digital forensic benchmark to get results from digital evidence from the Facebook lite application. In this investigation, National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST research methods with various stages, namely Collection, Examination, Analysis, and Reporting. While the forensic tools to be used are Magnet Axiom Forensic and MOBILedit Forensic Express Pro. Comparison and results of data conducted with forensic tools Magnet Axiom Forensic and MOBILedit Forensic Express Pro in the form of parameter data specified. Axiom Forensic Magnet data is 57.14% while MOBILedit Forensic Express Pro data is 85.71%. This data is the data of the performance results of both forensic tool applications in obtaining digital evidence on Facebook lite application.

Revising the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Carving Out a More Active Role for Congress

Revising the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Carving Out a More Active Role for Congress

Vindication of Professional Reputation Arising from Defamatory Online Publications

This article identifies the growing phenomenon of professionals suing their clients/patients for online defamation of their professional status and reputation. It reviews the phenomenon of ratings websites and scrutinises the growing popularity of such forms of feedback, identifying benefits but also detriments of such sites, especially when they are commercially influenced or unregulated. It notes that adverse feedback can be legitimate and helpful for both consumers and professionals but that it can also be the product of distress, anger and malice. This article reviews key court decisions in Germany, England, Canada and Australia where actions by disgruntled practitioners against clients/patients and/or publishing websites have succeeded in spite of the traditional diffidence on the part of professionals to engage in such litigation. It argues that the phenomena of defamation actions taken by professionals against their clients/patients and attempts to secure injunctive relief to prevent ongoing publication of false and reputation-damaging material are likely to grow in light of the potential for disinhibited and damaging publications by aggrieved persons on social media and other online forums.

Reviving the Intracorporate Communications Non-publication Rule: An Strategy to Encourage Effective Investigation of Internal Misconduct

Reviving the Intracorporate Communications Non-publication Rule: An Strategy to Encourage Effective Investigation of Internal Misconduct

Post-Mortal Protection of the Right to Reputation – A Comparative View

Abstract The paper discusses post-mortal protection of the right to reputation, with the aim of detecting similarities and differences in the legal treatment of this issue in European countries, and understanding the position of the European Court of Human Rights. The current theoretical standpoints as well as legislative approaches are quite diverse. Common law countries do not recognise a cause of action for posthumous defamation at all, and civil law jurisdictions regulate it quite differently. In this paper the authors attempt to provide a comprehensive overview and elaborate in detail the practical and theoretical aspects of the post-mortal protection of the right to reputation in order to answer some of the existing dilemmas. The authors also suggest the optimal method of post-mortal protection of reputational interests in modern society, bearing in mind the difficulty of achieving a balance between the exercise of freedom of expression and the right to reputation.

Doping in Sport and the Issue of Defamation in Australia: The Stephen Dank Cases

Stephen Dank is a name that will now be forever linked to the doping scandals at Cronulla-Sutherland and Essendon which arguably represents the biggest ever story in Australian sports law. Part of that story are the numerous defamation actions Dank took against anyone he perceived to be making criticisms of him in the media. However, rather than restoring his reputation, it is suggested the defeats he suffered in court actually protected the reputations of those accused of defamation, while at the same time further damaging his own. At considerable expense, too, with costs being awarded against Dank on all occasions. The cases reinforced the principle that even if someone has contributed material, unless they have consented, or have control of the final version, they will not be held liable for what is said or written. Most significantly, however, was the insight the cases provided into what actually happened at Cronulla-Sutherland during its doping scandal.

Crowdfunding Civil Justice

Crowdfunding Civil Justice