It’s highly unlikely anyone could sue for libel in the United States. The Time doing even a little bit of fact checking would allow them to say they were not negligent and avoid liability. Which leaves you suing the individuals who spoke to the Time. Which will likely require getting the Time to reveal their sources which would be quite hard.
In addition, the vast majority of the claims in the article are not “factual” in a legal sense. People are reporting their impressions, opinions, etc… For instance, if you had dinner with someone and you say that they were “grooming” you, that’s protected opinion even if it’s an absurd description of what happened.
Then you would have to show that you suffered harm from the libel. Which will be pretty hard given the anonymity in the article.
Finally, the people you’re suing probably don’t have a lot of assets. After paying for their court fees and representation, you’ll be lucky if you get anything. You probably won’t even get enough to cover your own legal expenses. But you will draw attention to yourself and the statements in question so your reputation will likely suffer.
There are definite statements of fact, and identifiable people, in that article. Three have been identified already.
Opinion isn’t quite as clear cut as you imply—opinions that imply knowledge of undisclosed false facts can be defamatory. Here, the reason for the opinion was stated (a particular advocacy for age-gap relationships) so I agree “grooming” is likely protected opinion here.
Most of those figures are private, so the standard is mere negligence (but for Owen, likely actual malice).
I don’t see how Time could protect source identity from disclosure in a libel suit by a private individual. Without putting in evidence about their contacts with the person, they’d be hard pressed not to lose on negligence.
Some courts have allowed anonymity in cased like this, at least early on. Opinions differ, but if I were the judge, I’d allow it at early stages in the litigation here.
An opponent’s lack of money can go both ways—it can make litigation unattractive, but plaintiffs can often use the financial ruin that even “winning” would cause a poor defendant to get concessions.
It’s highly unlikely anyone could sue for libel in the United States.
This is incorrect. Firstly, you probably meant “successfully sue for libel”—anyone can sue for libel, in principle. Secondly, in the United States, people who are considered “public figures” have to prove actual malice, which means that establishing negligence had occurred would be insufficient to establish libel had occurred; however, this is not the case for people who are not public figures. In most cases, they only have to show negligence had occurred.
Then you would have to show that you suffered harm from the libel.
From what I have seen on social media from time to time, the world is suffering from an epidemic of entire political and social movements, such as Effective Altruism, being libelled periodically, with no real consequences. I am not saying this particular article is an example of that, I don’t know, but it could be in principle. If that sort of behaviour (again, I’m not speaking about the Time article) isn’t considered libel by the law, amounting to billions of dollars in damages from libelling thousands of individuals simultaneously, it ought to be, because it’s greviously immoral and sociopathic. Just my opinion, but fiercely-held.
Large group libel isn’t a thing. You can sometimes sue if the group is small enough—lying about someone with characteristic X could lead to a libel suit if the description would only match like a dozen identifiable people (e.g., someone who lives in that house).
It’s highly unlikely anyone could sue for libel in the United States. The Time doing even a little bit of fact checking would allow them to say they were not negligent and avoid liability. Which leaves you suing the individuals who spoke to the Time. Which will likely require getting the Time to reveal their sources which would be quite hard.
In addition, the vast majority of the claims in the article are not “factual” in a legal sense. People are reporting their impressions, opinions, etc… For instance, if you had dinner with someone and you say that they were “grooming” you, that’s protected opinion even if it’s an absurd description of what happened.
Then you would have to show that you suffered harm from the libel. Which will be pretty hard given the anonymity in the article.
Finally, the people you’re suing probably don’t have a lot of assets. After paying for their court fees and representation, you’ll be lucky if you get anything. You probably won’t even get enough to cover your own legal expenses. But you will draw attention to yourself and the statements in question so your reputation will likely suffer.
(US perspective here)
There are definite statements of fact, and identifiable people, in that article. Three have been identified already.
Opinion isn’t quite as clear cut as you imply—opinions that imply knowledge of undisclosed false facts can be defamatory. Here, the reason for the opinion was stated (a particular advocacy for age-gap relationships) so I agree “grooming” is likely protected opinion here.
Most of those figures are private, so the standard is mere negligence (but for Owen, likely actual malice).
I don’t see how Time could protect source identity from disclosure in a libel suit by a private individual. Without putting in evidence about their contacts with the person, they’d be hard pressed not to lose on negligence.
Some courts have allowed anonymity in cased like this, at least early on. Opinions differ, but if I were the judge, I’d allow it at early stages in the litigation here.
An opponent’s lack of money can go both ways—it can make litigation unattractive, but plaintiffs can often use the financial ruin that even “winning” would cause a poor defendant to get concessions.
This is incorrect. Firstly, you probably meant “successfully sue for libel”—anyone can sue for libel, in principle. Secondly, in the United States, people who are considered “public figures” have to prove actual malice, which means that establishing negligence had occurred would be insufficient to establish libel had occurred; however, this is not the case for people who are not public figures. In most cases, they only have to show negligence had occurred.
From what I have seen on social media from time to time, the world is suffering from an epidemic of entire political and social movements, such as Effective Altruism, being libelled periodically, with no real consequences. I am not saying this particular article is an example of that, I don’t know, but it could be in principle. If that sort of behaviour (again, I’m not speaking about the Time article) isn’t considered libel by the law, amounting to billions of dollars in damages from libelling thousands of individuals simultaneously, it ought to be, because it’s greviously immoral and sociopathic. Just my opinion, but fiercely-held.
Large group libel isn’t a thing. You can sometimes sue if the group is small enough—lying about someone with characteristic X could lead to a libel suit if the description would only match like a dozen identifiable people (e.g., someone who lives in that house).