The Law of Online Defamation in United Kingdom and United States: Contrasting Thought Process of Respect for Reputation versus Freedom of Expression

EasyChair Preprint 6688

Abstract

Today, the Internet is the preferred medium for humans to express their emotions for fellow human beings. The display of feelings like anger, anguish, happiness, pleasure and so on largely takes place through Internet which is provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Many a time, the display of feeling crosses the fine line of mere feeling to that of slander attracting provisions of civil and the criminal law. In such cases the liability of ISPs also arise in courts of law. While there are laws in almost all countries to deal with the offence of defamation in the physical world, such law in cyberspace is wanting in most of the countries. In this paper the contrasting approaches to the law of defamation like UK and USA have been examined. While United States defamation law reflects a society preferring freedom of speech, United Kingdom law demonstrates Britons’ more respect for reputation than freedom of speech. These two approaches could be the starting point of drafting an appropriate defamation law in countries lacking defamation law.

Keyphrases: Communication Decency Act, Defamation law, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs, Internet Law, Law of Cyberspace, Law of Defamation, Online Defamation, Private International Law, common law, communication decency, electronic commerce

@booklet{EasyChair:6688,
  author    = {Sandeep Mittal},
  title     = {The Law of Online Defamation in United Kingdom and United States: Contrasting Thought Process of Respect for Reputation versus Freedom of Expression},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6688},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}