[WikiEN-l] Bans and online/offline reputation (was Re: Follow-up on my Ban from Wikipedia (part 3))

[Armed Blowfish]

On 11/09/2007, Wily D <wilydoppelganger at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The bar for libel of non-public figures is very low if I understand it
>>> correctly.  And that bar varies greatly from jurisdiction to
>>> jurisdiction.  In some jurisdictions, truth is not a defense.  And
>>> then there are right to privacy laws, which are often intermixed with
>>> libel laws, and to which truth is not a defense.  Further, I'm sure
>>> there's lots of stuff on the arb com "evidence" pages which are
>>> downright false.
>>
>> Where is truth not a defence? By my understanding, libel is defined as
>> publishing damaging lies about someone. Privacy is another matter
>> entirely, and truth isn't a defence there. However, for something to
>> be a violation of privacy (at least under UK law) you have to have a
>> reasonable expectation of privacy (eg. someone takes a picture of you
>> sunbathing naked in your garden and sells it to a tabloid, that's a
>> violation of privacy, if they take a similar picture of you on a nude
>> beach, it isn't). There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on the
>> internet. The only way privacy law can become relevant to Wikipedia is
>> if the person publishing the information knows the person in question
>> in real life (which includes stalkers) - we do have problems with
>> those kinds of cases, but not very often.
>
> Indeed, I'd be very curious about this too.  Mistake of fact is not
> always a defense to libel, but I'm unaware of any jurisdiction where
> truth is not a defense of libel accusations.
>
> WilyD

Try striking out 'libel' and writing in 'defamation'.

Try Great Britain.
http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_uk_british_web_internet_punblshers_defamation.htm

Also Guatemala, where defamation is actually
a criminal offence.
http://www.speaktruth.org/defend/profiles/profile_03.asp