Re: [Wikimediauk-l] UK government on defamation on the internet

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Thomas Dalton <<mailto:thomas.dalton@gmail.com>thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote: 2009/9/17 Michael Peel <<mailto:email@mikepeel.net>email@mikepeel.net>: Does anyone know what this means? "Publishers of online archives and blogs might also be given a defence of qualified privilege - that a piece is fair and accurate and published without malice - against an offending article after a year time limit has expired." If it is fair, accurate and malice-free, then it isn't libellous anyway, and doesn't need correcting. This is talking about news reports or blog discussions of claims made by third parties, eg "at the public meeting Joe Bloggs said John Doe had accepted bribes and was corrupt". Let's suppose John Doe was not corrupt and Joe Bloggs was just trying to smear him. The report would still be libellous unless it came under the Reynolds qualified privilege defence from case law, but this is rather weak and difficult to qualify for. So the proposal is to have a statutory defence. -- Sam Blacketer

Ah, so the report is accurate, but the thing being reported is not. That makes sense - thanks!