If you hate somebody, what would you do? Or you are a person who likes to say negative things about people who you don't like, what is the most you can do? Offline, you can have a long conversation, or in a worser condition, there might be some audience watching it. But how far and how fast will the rumors go? Well, that is offline situation. Think about online. What will you do, if you are an internet freak, or a frequent blogger, or a website host, what will you do to the people you don't like? You can just type a wrongful message and send it to all of the people in your friends list. And imagine if your friends forward it to others.. You shall do the mathematics yourself on how many people might have viewed your message about the person you are defaming with. I have read few cases on this issue.
One was Cullen Vs White. Dr Trevor Cullen, an Australian academic sued Bill White, a resident of the US for defamatory statements in over 60 “hate sites” hosted outside Australia. The statements included implying Cullen was a paedophile and a fraud. The court found for the Plaintiff and ordered the Defendant to pay damages. Note that the Plaintiff was based in Australia and the Defendant was based in the United States. The websites were outside of US. Yet because millions of people can have access to the websites, the Court stated that the act of defamation has become wide-spread.
Online defamation is not a child-play thing. We should be careful on what we are saying/typing/posting/commenting on anything on the Internet.
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