I know someone who writes a blog that analyzes various companies in a certain field, and writes on their business practices in his blog.
Several months ago he had posted some information, which he later learned to be false, about a company. He did not post this information with any malicious intent.
Within a few days of searching, he found out that this information was incorrect, and immediately retracted his earlier statement, and apologized. He has since made it clear in several posts that the information contained in that posting was false.
So far he has yet to hear from that company, but he's very concerned that he could be sued for libel or defamation.
(The false statements he posted weren't actually very damaging to the company; they just contained incorrect data that could have reflected poorly on the company. This kind of thing happens to reporters periodically and they usually don't get sued.) Should he be worried? What else could he do about this?
2007-06-27 08:00:37 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Law & Ethics
He did not know at the time that these statistics were false.
2007-06-27 08:02:43 · update #1
As long as he rectified the statement with a retraction he should be ok.
2007-06-27 08:04:33 · answer #1 · answered by Lori B 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes he can be sued. However, if he had a public forum whereas anyone and everyone can leave comments, and if the comments weren't his own, then federal law protects him from being sued. Why? Because the public fourm owner cannot control the comments of other people on an every second basis. The forum owner has a duty to mitigate the problem by deleteing the information that he see's as "abusive", but those comments aren't always found.
If he is the only person that uses the blog (you can tell by reading it), then yeah, he can be sued.
Chances of being sued are highly unlikely, however.
2007-06-27 15:06:11 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Posting something as a blog is liable to being sued as any other media. Whether this Company takes action is a decision by them. If he has contact with them and they are aware of the situation, a letter could be sent politely confirming details of the retraction and asking if this is acceptable. Unless it has damaged the Company, they are unlikely to take action.
2007-06-27 15:10:30 · answer #3 · answered by Barbarian 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, you sure can if you are not careful. A case like this is happening in my town right now. Someone (an employee) of the hospital bloging bad things. The hospital is suing.
2007-06-27 15:06:17 · answer #4 · answered by Sheila E 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He retracted and apologized. It's unlikely that he'll be sued. Additionally, he's probably too "small potatoes" for an established company to worry about.
I doubt he'll hear from them at all.
2007-06-27 15:04:57 · answer #5 · answered by Chanteuse_ar 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
be afraid very afraid. yeah a huge company cares about ur friends blog so much
2007-06-27 15:10:14 · answer #6 · answered by blktan23 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋