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If you are defamed in the Irish Times, you will receive a healthy sum by way of compensation if your reputation has been damaged and you succeed with your claim. If you are defamed on Facebook or Twitter or TripAdvisor then it is an entirely different story.
Perhaps the biggest growth area on my side of the practice at the moment relates to defamation in social media. If I call you a thief in a letter to the Irish Times and the letter was published, you can sue the Irish Times and you will probably be compensated. If I call you a thief on Facebook or Twitter, you cannot sue Facebook or Twitter. There is an exception to this rule. If I call on Facebook or Twitter to remove the offending defamatory comments and they fail to do so, then you may be able to sue them but believe me, it is utterly tortuous and inevitably clients just run out of patience, if not money, trying to get even a response from any of these gigantic social media organisations.
At the moment I am acting for a client who has been defamed in a national newspaper but the newspaper is relying on comments made on TripAdvisor to justify the comments made in their article. In the recent past I had a client who was terribly defamed on Twitter and eventually I was able to get the offending comments removed, but not without a tortuous battle.
Legislation has been introduced to protect social media at the expense of the private individual. If anybody is ever defamed on Facebook or Twitter or any other form of social media, I would urge them to vigorously go after the organisation because the only thing that will make them act in a more responsible manner is if they are pursued by members of the public and if it eventually costs them money. Profit is their bottom line and if members of the public can successfully sue social media for damage to their reputation, the position will change very rapidly.
Kevin Brophy
Brophy Solicitors
If you are defamed in the Irish Times, you will receive a healthy sum by way of compensation if your reputation has been damaged and you succeed with your claim. If you are defamed on Facebook or Twitter or TripAdvisor then it is an entirely different story.
Perhaps the biggest growth area on my side of the practice at the moment relates to defamation in social media. If I call you a thief in a letter to the Irish Times and the letter was published, you can sue the Irish Times and you will probably be compensated. If I call you a thief on Facebook or Twitter, you cannot sue Facebook or Twitter. There is an exception to this rule. If I call on Facebook or Twitter to remove the offending defamatory comments and they fail to do so, then you may be able to sue them but believe me, it is utterly tortuous and inevitably clients just run out of patience, if not money, trying to get even a response from any of these gigantic social media organisations.
At the moment I am acting for a client who has been defamed in a national newspaper but the newspaper is relying on comments made on TripAdvisor to justify the comments made in their article. In the recent past I had a client who was terribly defamed on Twitter and eventually I was able to get the offending comments removed, but not without a tortuous battle.
Legislation has been introduced to protect social media at the expense of the private individual. If anybody is ever defamed on Facebook or Twitter or any other form of social media, I would urge them to vigorously go after the organisation because the only thing that will make them act in a more responsible manner is if they are pursued by members of the public and if it eventually costs them money. Profit is their bottom line and if members of the public can successfully sue social media for damage to their reputation, the position will change very rapidly.
Kevin Brophy
Brophy Solicitors
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