Libel Laws, Blogs, and Texas

Viki Truitt, a state representative from Texas, pre-filled a bill to limit defamatory comments on the internet, epecially, it seems, blogs. According the the Dallas Fort Worth Star Telegram, the language of the bill "specified that the author of defamatory statements expressed on the Internet would be subject to the same libel limitations as the author of any other statement 'in any other written or graphic form.'" The intent would bring some "civility" to the blog world, or, at least to diminished comments that some object to because they insult individuals and provide little social worth.

The problem, if this bill or any one like it passed, would be the "chilling effect" of speech and would provide one set of standards for traditional, and reserved media outlets such as the Mass Media, and another set of standards for the bloggers. It seems that it would be easier to control the elite and harder to control the people.

Texas is not the only state considering a bill. Tennessee and considered and withdrew support for a bill.

Under current US Defamation Law, it is very hard to prove and very hard to convict. First, Slander applies to spoken discourse ad libel applies to print doscourse. There are two types of libel- liberl per se (the statement and libel per quod (based on circumstances). The first covers statements about criminality, whether or not the person has a contageous disease, attack of a reputation, and attack on sexual immorality. The second type is based on circumstance. If you asserted a person was perfectly healthy and the person received money for health insurance this could be libel per quod. I do not know how satire or irony affects both.

The current Supreme Court test seems to protect freedom of speech over protecting the individual who is criticized by the remarks to ensure a chilling effect does not occur. Private persons receive more protection than public persons. The defenses against a libel complaint are (1) truth (2) comments dows not harm an already tarnished reputation (3) it is a privileged communication and (4) the comment needs to be made with actual malice. The fourth is the hardest to prove.

This may be something worth watching.