Photo Gallery Fighting Online Defamation
In an age when anyone can Google job applicants or potential partners before getting to know them, these kinds of Internet posts can destroy careers -- and even lives. Still, fighting back against online defamation isn't always easy. It's hard to pinpoint exactly who has made slanderous comments, and the level of legal liability for Internet-based services is still fuzzy at best.
Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) reached a decision in October 2011 that is supposed to alter these circumstances. For the first time, the judges ruled on the criteria under which someone confronted with defamatory rumors on the Internet can require an Internet-based service to remove the offending remarks.
But even in the wake of this decision, the future remains nebulous. The BGH's ruling clarified that affected parties have a legal right to demand that Internet-based services delete certain material. However, the party that feels defamed must first prove that the online spitefulness was actually slanderous and untrue. According to the BGH, "the statutory violation" must be "easily" recognizable based upon the facts presented in the affected party's complaint.
Still, this hasn't necessarily simplified things for companies. They are required to acknowledge the evidence presented by the affected parties, but then they have to make a difficult decision: They can comply with the deletion request and thereby expose themselves to accusations of censorship; or they can risk being sued for continuing to violate the affected party's so-called personality rights, which include the right to protect one's honor.
