Defamation Act – Draft Defence For Website Operators

The Government has recently published draft regulations which give website operators a defence against defamation claims where they did not post the statement on their website.

However, this defence is defeated if:

• it was not possible for the claimant to identify the poster of the statement;
• the claimant gave the website operator a notice of complaint in relation to the statement;  and
• the website operator failed to respond to the notice of complaint in the manner prescribed by the regulations.

But, assuming the complaint notice contains all the required information (which is set out in the regulations), a website operator will have a defence if it follows the procedure set out in the regulations.