what is libel 
libel involves the act of publishing a statement about an individual either in written form or by broadcast over media platforms such as radio television or the internet that is untrue and threatens to harm the reputation and or livelihood of the targeted person libel is considered a civil wrong tort and can therefore be the basis of a lawsuit libel is often compared with slander which refers to unwritten or unpublished defamatory speech understanding libellibel represents the published or broadcasted version of defamation defamation occurs when an individual s words damage another person s reputation or tarnish their ability to earn a living persons who commit libel can be subjected to civil and in the past criminal penalties 1in the u s libel was once considered an area of unprotected speech not covered by first amendment freedoms along with obscenity and fighting words this changed over the course of the 20th century as court decisions began to favor free speech over the protection of those damaged by potentially defamatory speech 1the offending statement in question must purport to be factual and not opinion based 2 this is generally a strong defense but this does not mean that by simply preceding a statement with the words i think an individual is safeguarded from the possibility of committing libelous actions for example if someone wrote and published the sentence i think sam murdered their spouse that individual is nonetheless vulnerable to libel even though this statement was technically framed as a belief indeed this phrase suggests that the individual had a solid basis in which to believe that the statement is factual proving libelfor someone to be found guilty of committing libel the target of the offending comments does not necessarily have to claim to be harmed as the result of the published statement several types of defamatory statements are considered damaging in themselves regardless of whether they can be shown to have resulted in actual harm these include allegations of criminal activity statements that someone has a contagious disease accusations of sexual misconduct and allegations of unprofessional or improper business conduct separately it is generally more difficult for public figures to sue for libel than it is for private parties to bring legal action in the wake of similar comments this is mainly due to a decision by the u s supreme court requiring the libel to demonstrate actual malice in order for a public figure to sue 31 modest factual inaccuracies such as incorrectly stating a person s age height or weight do not constitute libelous activity lastly truth is recognized as a complete defense against complaints of defamation depending on the jurisdiction a defamatory statement may be presumed to be false in which case the defendant can raise an affirmative defense if they can show it is substantially true or the burden may be on the plaintiff to that an allegedly defamatory statement is in fact false in order to prove their claim either way a true statement can be protected against claims of defamation 4two current members of the supreme court namely justices thomas and gorsuch have indicated that the sullivan decision should be reconsidered 5 this landmark case from the 1960s revolved around ads placed in the new york times urging readers to contribute to a legal fund for martin luther king jr but which contained several small inaccuracies the court ruled that the times was not committing libel instead the court decided that the target of a libel claim must show that it was made with prior knowledge or reckless disregard for its false claims 6 scholars have argued that the sullivan case affirmed freedom of the press and paved the way for the civil rights movement differences between libel and slanderthe chief difference between slander and libel is that the former involves defamatory speech while the latter focuses on defamatory writings interestingly although defamatory content presented on websites was originally considered to be libelous and not slanderous that view has shifted largely due to the english courts which opine that internet content is more commensurate with speech than it is with traditional print media from a strictly legal perspective defamatory comments are not actionable unless they are properly published unfortunately for ill intended bloggers the term published in the context of internet communication legally means that merely a single individual must read the offensive blog in question consequently a webmaster may be sued for libeling someone by trashing their reputation on a personal blog if only their best pal a colleague or a family member consumes the defamatory words of course personal blogs are typically far less trafficked than mainstream websites such as the bbc news official site and other large platforms therefore that first group is more apt to get away with the defamation not only because the words may slip by unnoticed but also because the target of the libel may be reluctant to file suit against the offending blogger lest a public court case bring even more attention to the slurs in question 