Is Linking To Defamatory Statements The Same As Publishing Defamatory Statements?

The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the case of a former political campaign manager who claims that links to defamatory content on other sites is the same as publishing the content on your own site. The case was heard by a judge at the British Columbia Supreme Court and was struck down, but the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the appeal.

David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, said:

"To import liability in those circumstances is to impose just a tremendous burden of liability on all participants in the internet,".

"Not just hosts, not just websites, not just bulletin boards, not just ISPs, but also individual participants, commenters on blogs, commenters in newspapers, newspapers themselves, other publishers who allow anybody to speak on the internet.

"You can just imagine the chilling effect that would have."

This is scary stuff!

Source: CBC

Court Ordered Publication Ban Broken By Social Media Users

Rules in place to protect victims of crimes and, in many cases, minors are being inadvertently undermined by bloggers and social media site users. The concept of publication bans by the courts has been around for years, at least here in Canada, and have kept journalists from publishing details of certain cases that the court deems necessary in order to protect some or all of the parties involved. While journalists are well aware of the consequences of reporting on these details, it appears as though the general public is ill informed, ignorant, or oblivious to the concept of publication bans. Case in point, a judge in the case of a man involved in a recent abduction case in Moncton New Brunswick has placed details of the incident under a publication ban. Yet the writings of a social media user clearly ties the victim of the case to the incident. It will be interesting to see how the court reacts to this regardless of whether or not the unfortunate remarks have since been removed.

Source: CBC