Blogger Smacked With $2.5 Million Fine in Defamation Suit; Are Bloggers at Risk?

The answer is yes according to Australian libel expert Clive Evatt QC.

"not only the blogger who is often anonymous, but any person who supplies information to that blogger is held equally liable as to publication and can be sued"

In addition in March 2012 Yahoo Inc were ordered by the Victorian Supreme Court to pay damages of $220,000 to a Melbourne man for a libel that showed up in their search engine. That claimant is now suing other search engines.  Costs were awarded to him against Yahoo in the sum of approx $413,000.

Another expert says : "it is just a matter of time before the courts test the 12 month rule as well- it could be proved that every day a blog or website is published anew (unlike a print publication that disappears over time) and as the libel can be downloaded, there may be no time limit on a court action being taken. The days of anonymous blogging may soon be over as blog hosts share blame for internet defamation. Courts in every country are taking a dim view of US corporations who try to claim immunity under US law when they profit abroad"

Things are changing in the USA as well as the above case shows:

" If you are a blogger and heard about THE BAD LAWSUIT AGAINST A BLOGGER, you are probably concerned to know what is going on and are wondering if you are at risk doing what you love to do.

Well, it depends upon a few things. The answer may be, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps: 1) if you are up front, in your face defamatory (must be proven in a court of law); 2) if the state where you live hasn't updated its journalism laws; 3)if you do not cite your sources (But journalists are at risk for this as well and some of the finer ones have been caught passing off another's ideas and not giving credit for it.) 4) if you create out of thin air stories...extensive ones... that have no basis in fact and pass them off as fact, i.e. as in Shattered Glass, the film, based on a true story, or Frey's A Million Little Pieces,). But even then the idea of court is anathema for both sides and not entered into lightly. "

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