Defamation in the digital age: the risks of online comments

Most people are generally aware that you can't defame another person- in essence, you can't make bad comments about another person that are untrue and may harm that person's reputation. The way in which most people are aware of this is by newspaper or television companies being sued for comments they have made about a person or company.

What can often get overlooked when thinking about defamation is people who make comments online, particularly on social media. Due to the informal nature of social media communication, people can often forget that any comments are subject to defamation laws.

There are some important issues to note when it comes to defamation:

• it does not matter if there was no intention to harm the reputation of another, it is enough that the material was published;