Issues of Online Defamation

The Issue of Liability

Alike the case in traditional offline defamation, there are several issues concerning the liability of online defamation. However, the players involved are not the newspapers, book publishers or re-publishers. The relationship between the players in the scope of Internet and the liability of each player are more complicated and new to the traditional law. While the original sender or creator of the defamatory materials should bear the direct responsibility, there are questions about whether other channels that these materials have passed through, such as the Internet Service Provider and the Content Service Provider, should also be liable.

The Original Creator
It is very clear that the person who create defamatory material and spread it in the Internet should be liable. However, the feature of anonymity in the Internet creates difficulty in tracing and investigation. The creator might use false name and email address, even use public computer terminal that does not belong to him, which makes the Internet Protocol (IP) Address meaningless to the investigation.

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
There are different types of ISP which provide different Internet service to users. Some ISP only provides connection and access services (IAP) while some will also provide website hosting and platform services (IPP). Some will also provide content services (ICP) to the users of Internet by hosting a website or portal, in which the content might be created by many other sources such as contracted writers or websites. All ISP have the personal or corporate information of their clients such as their IP addresses, names and mailing addresses. Theoretically, ISP serves as a bridge between the Internet and the end users. It should not be liable when one of its clients violate the law by using their services. The relationship should resemble the inventor of a knife is not responsible for the crime which a killer use this knife to kill someone (Gao, 2002). Some countries such as the United States have also established law that protects the ISP from being sued in the cases involving their clients.