Defamation

Pretend for a moment that you are engaged in a bitter dispute – perhaps it’s a fight over money, a family feud or a messy divorce, a disaffected employee or a vengeful neighbour. You decide to resort to Social Media “to tell the truth” about your nemesis. You feel totally safe doing so – after all, our Constitution protects our rights to free speech, the Internet is a bastion of Freedom of Information, nothing said online is “real”, and anyway who can object to you telling the truth? Wrong! A recent High Court judgment in Garbade v Jan Van Niekerk…