Can satire be libel? Can a clearly marked satirical article claiming someone said something (which they did not) that would seriously damage the person's reputation be considered libel? For example, if Biden actually said what this Babylon Bee article &quot;claims,&quot; it would certainly harm his reputation. Could that article be considered libelous?
Something labeled, and indeed intended, as satire can be defamation if people believe that the statements made are in fact true of the person concerned (the subject), or that the satire implies such statements about subject; and the statements about the subject made or implied in the satire are in fact false; and such statements tend to harm the reputation of the subject. Satire can be, and has been, used as a cover for pointed statements about the subject, and in some cases such statements can constitute libel (or slander). In the US a libel plaintiff would have the additional burdens of: showing actual damage, or else showing that the statements fell into one of the limited categories of libel per se; and If the plaintiff is a public official or public figure, showing actual malice under the rule of Times v Sullivan. Those burdens exist in every US libel or defamation action, whether a satire is used or not. That something is labeled as or treated as a satire may indicate that it is not to be believed. That might go to the intention of the person or entity making the statement. It might also go to whether it is reasonable for people to take the statements as factual. But satire can be used as a thin cover for a factual statement. If (in a given case) it is being so used, or if people might well believe that it is, it can be defamatory.
There are three main aspects to this: Its their website, and their terms of service. They can enforce those terms, or change them (in some appropriate manner). You have no recourse if they remove you, block you, or delete your account, for example. That's the measure that you would probably have, virtually every time. To claim damages, or litigate beyond just website access control, requires a legal claim. But there's a catch there. To claim damages, they need to show actual damage, which they wish to be compensated for. If you misused their website but no actual harm can be shown, the total damage claimable is zero, whether or not you followed their rules. Merely entering dishonest information isn't by itself harm. So they would have to show they suffered damage/harm because of that, which is directly attributable to your behaviour, was foreseeably harmful etc, or similar. They also need to consider legal costs, and ability to enforce, especially if you are in a different country. If for some reason the computer use was also illegal, then a criminal act could be committed and they could notify law enforcement. For example suppose you did this in the little known country of Honestania, where the law says that to prevent trolling and online abuse, anything posted on social media under any but your own legal name is a crime. Or suppose you'd been banned from the system and ignoring/evading such a ban was criminal computer use or criminal trespass due to the forbidden/unauthorised access (which can happen in several places). But this is purely for completeness; I guess you'd know if you were taking it further, into criminal computer use.
It can be Defamation suits, in particular, are often undertaken to vindicate reputation rather than to secure monetary damages. This is one reason why suits awarding nominal damages for libel (sums such as $1, or six-pence or one farthing in the UK) are sometimes regarded as victories by plaintiffs, even though such plaintiffs gained no money, and in some cases had to spend much time,. effort, and money to get such a verdict. In other cases such low damages are known as &quot;contemptuous damages&quot; expressing the view that &quot;Yes you were technically defamed, but your reputation was of no value&quot;. The damages of one half-penny awarded in Dering v Uris and Others (1964 had been taken in this latter sense. See also the Wikippedia section on &quot;Nominal damages&quot; where it is stated that: The [US] Supreme Court decided 8–1 in the 2021 case Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski that nominal damages are appropriate means to redress violated rights otherwise now rendered moot. In some kinds of cases in some jurisdictions a plaintiff may indicate that s/he does not desire monetary damages, only a judgement supporting his or her position. In other cases a suit must be framed as one for monetary damages, but the plaintiff may state that the verdict, not the damages, is what is most desired. There is noting illegal nor (in my view) immoral in bringing a suit more for public vindication than for money damages. There is, of course, a risk that the case will not turn out as the plaintiff wishes. Whether a states lack of interest in damages will favorably or unfavorably impress the judge or jury can vary widely, and cannot be predicted in general. Defamation case verdicts sometimes include an order for one side to apologize to the other. Whether such an apology has value is a matter of opinion.
In the US, it is not illegal to lie in general. This includes lying about someone: it's not illegal per se to lie about them. What is illegal is slander and libel: lying about someone in a way that hurts their reputation. The defamation doctrine in the US is generally a common-law doctrine (i.e. the rules and limits are based on court decisions, rather than on laws passed by legislatures), although it may differ state-by-state. Depending on the state, some defamation may be criminal; there is no federal criminal defamation. US defamation law is largely defined through its interaction with the First Amendment. While libel is not constitutionally protected, punishment for libel is seriously limited by the need to avoid either punishing protected speech, or chilling potential protected speech (i.e. discouraging people from saying something that would in fact be protected, because they aren't sure whether or not it's protected). Libel in the US only applies to a false statement of fact, or an opinion which implies some false fact. If it can't actually be proven incorrect, it can't be libelous in the US. The question of whether it's a statement of fact doesn't just depend on the literal speech; it includes things like the context, and is a question about what a reasonable person would think. If I were to claim that someone was "literally Hitler," for instance, no reasonable person would think I was seriously claiming that the person was the former leader of Nazi Germany. Now, no reasonable person who is familiar with Twitter would ever assume that the tweet meant Obama literally stood up in front of the UN and said "Please accept this nothingburger in place of a respectable climate plan." So, it only counts as libel if a reasonable person would think it implies some fact. But a reasonable person familiar with Twitter would most likely think Miesel is saying "The president's pollution plan is a pointless piece of political puffery planned to placate principalities and potentates." This is basically a matter of opinion. Even to the extent that it's not a matter of opinion, public figures in the US cannot win a defamation suit unless they show "actual malice:" the speaker must actually know or actually strongly suspect that their statement is false in some material way. It's not enough that a reasonable person would think "this might not be true;" the speaker themselves must doubt the truth of it (they must be reckless, not just negligent). Courts are also extremely deferential to defendants in these cases. While it is technically possible for a public figure to prove defamation, it is exceptionally difficult. If the person didn't know they were falsely attributing the quote, and honesty thought it was correct, they're in the clear. If the quote isn't supposed to be a statement of fact, but it implies false facts, but the speaker honestly thinks those facts are true, they're in the clear. Private figures don't have to meet the actual malice standard to prove defamation. They still need to show that the statement is a statement of fact or something implying false facts; if it's obviously a summary of something they really said, possibly with added editorial comment, they can't prove defamation.
In the united-states, there is no general right for a person to control or approve a biography or other account of that person's life. Many biographies are &quot;unauthorized&quot;, which simply means that the subject, or in some cases the subject's heirs or family, did not cooperate with the biographer. Sometimes this is even considered to be a point in favor of such a work, on the assumption that an &quot;authorized&quot; biography would tend to slant or even censor things to meet the approval of the subject or the subject's family. There are some restrictions on an unauthorized biography. The first and most obvious is the law of defamation. A biography that includes statements that are both false and defamatory about a living subject could be the subject of a winning lawsuit. Damages in such cases can sometimes be sizable. However, the person suing must show false facts in the work. In many cases damage to reputation must also be shown, although there are some categories of statement that are considered defamation per se, where injury to reputation is assumed and need not be proved. These include a false statement that a person committed a crime, and a statement that a person was guilty of professional misconduct. It used to be considered defamation per se to allege that a woman had had sex outside of marriage, but I doubt that a court would so hold today. Beyond that, in the US, if the subject is a public official or public figure, s/he must show actual malice, that is that the false statement was made knowing that it was false, or with reckless disregard for its possible falsity. This can be hard to prove. In most jurisdictions only the person defamed can sue for defamation. Once that person is dead, no such suit can be brought. Moreover, in the very rare case where a person's reputation is so bad that a court finds that it can suffer no meaningful further injury for certain allegations, even if these were found to be false, the court may dismiss such a suit. See Dykstra v St. Martin's Press New York Superior Court, New York County, Docket Number 153676 for an example. However this would only be relevant in the very unusual case of a &quot;libel-proof&quot; plaintiff, and even then if the conduct of the author or publisher was egregious, the court might hold that punitive damages were possible. The defenses of truth, lack of actual malice, and newsworthiness are far more common. Indeed defamation suits in general are hard to win and expensive to bring. In some US states there is available the tort of publication of private facts. This is different from defamation in that it can still be brought when the facts published were true, while truth is a total defense against a defamation suit. However a private facts suit must establish that the facts were in fact private, or at least not widely known, and that they were published in a way that would be grossly offensive to a reasonable person. Facts that are considered of &quot;legitimate public interest&quot; or &quot;newsworthy&quot; are also not generally protected. Moreover, not every US state allows such suits at all. See Diaz vs Oakland Tribune, Inc 188 Cal Rpt 762 (1982) for a case in which a Private Facts case was sustained, and the steps taken by the subject to keep a sex transition private were a significant issue in the case. In Hawkins vs Multimedia inc 344 SE 2nd 145 (1986) a South Carolina court held that a news story identifying a teenage boy by name as the father of an &quot;illegitimate&quot; child was not newsworthy and a private facts judgement including punitive damages was upheld. In the US, First Amendment protections have been taken to indicate that the courts will not suppress or punish speech or writing without good reason. This makes it harder to win suits over biographies. There have been cases of magazine articles about a particular person who is in no way famous but who was considered &quot;typical&quot;. Such stories have in several cases been upheld against challenges as of &quot;legitimate public interest&quot;. See Arrington vs New York Times Company 434 N.E. 2nd 1319 (1982) In that case the objection was to the use of a person's photo on the cover of the New York Times Magazine who was not actually mentioned in the story, and who alleged that he was not similar to those who were mentioned. The use was upheld.
One example is Sweden. Ebba Busch, the leader of the Christian Democrat party, accepted an order of summary punishment for writing in a Facebook post that the lawyer of her opponent in a real estate dispute has a criminal conviction, which is true. She said, &quot;I admit having committed a crime, that I in my soul and heart consider myself innocent of. [...] But in Sweden, even the truth can be libel.&quot; A professor of civil law commented: &quot;I'm a bit worried that there could be a campaign for true statements on social media always to be permitted, it would amount to terrible consequences and a negative development. In Sweden, libel law has been used to counteract spreading of revenge porn and sex videos of young women. Truth is not unimportant, it is taken into account in the libel process. It would be a negative development if it became allowed to spread everything that is true, in that case you'd need a more precise proposal about how you would permit certain actions and not others.&quot;
Yes. Making statements in a legally protected confidential context is not publishing them, and in most jurisdictions, defamation must be published to create a cause of action. In such a case the patient might well have a cause of action against the therapist for violation of patient confidentially, and a complaint to the relevant authority could get the therapist's license revoked, or perhaps a censure from the licensing authority, whatever it is the the jurisdiction. Note &quot;published&quot; does not have to mean putting them in print, but does mean making them in such a way that general circulation of them is plausible. In addition, such statements may be coered by a qualified privilege. In Marchesi v. Franchino, 283 Md. 131, 135, 387 A.2d 1129 (1978) the Maryland Supreme Court (reviewing a case from the Court of Special Appeals) held (at 135-136) that: ... the common law recognized that a person ought to be shielded against civil liability for defamation where, in good faith, he publishes a statement in furtherance of his own legitimate interests, or those shared in common with the recipient or third parties, ... The Maryland court went on to quote the Restatement (Second) of Torts, (Scope Note preceding § 593 (1977)) which states that if a privilege were not granted: information that should be given or received would not be communicated because of [the] fear of . . . persons capable of giving it that they would be held liable in an action of defamation if their statements were untrue. It would seem that a statement by a person to his or her own therapist, as a part of therapy, and intended to be held in confidence by the therapist, ought to fall under this definition of privilege, although I cannot find any actual case with this exact fact pattern. If the person knew or had reason to know that the therapist was likely to repeat the statement, that would be different. If the person and the therapist were not in a practitioner/patient relationship, with its normal expectations of confidentiality, that also would be different.
A contract can’t legalise illegality Let’s assume that absent the “simulation” disclosure in the ToS, this would be fraud. The question then becomes, does making the disclosure make it not fraud? Fraud requires dishonesty and deception. These are measured by what a reasonable person would determine from the overall conduct so a small piece of truth in amongst a web of half-truths and outright lies is still dishonest and deceptive. From the perspective of US law, is Bob doing this regarded a scam? No, but only because “scam” isn’t a legal term - it’s slang for fraud and this is fraud Is this a criminal case, or a civil case? Both What evidence can Tom provide to support the lawsuit? Whatever he has. However, in practice, these types of fraudsters are rarely ever caught and it’s even more rare for the victim to recover their money. They are usually off-shore in countries with either poor rule of law or which will not extradite their nationals.