On 21/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia" doesn't need to concern itself with it. Its editors, on a personal level, might find it appropriate to.
If Wikipaedia wants to ensure that it has a defence under British law, in case anyone should try to sue it there, it needs to meet the criteria of innocent dissemination in the United Kingdom.
Which, in most cases - and certainly in most cases where it would likely be significant - we do.
I would like to drop into this conversation two small details which may be germane to some tangents of this discussion, before I have to see yet another wildly inventive interpretation of the good old defamation law.
- it is probably impossible to sue for defamation *of an anonymous individual*, and rather tricky for a pseudonymous one who successfuly maintains limited privacy.
(I would be v. interested to know of any caselaw - journalists under pen-names slanging each other in the thirties? seems plausible, but a quick flick through a relevant book didn't produce anything)
- anyone can essentially be sued for defamation with internet publication, *but* the plaintiff needs to have standing to do so; they need to show that they had some reputation to be damaged *in the United Kingdom*. This likely means that unless you're a moderately public figure, bringing a case as a foreigner won't get very far.
(The logic runs: if you have no reputation, it cannot be harmed, therefore anything which would lower your reputation founders on the fact that no-one would care)
Just dropping those in before we all get too carried away!