Social media posts can get you sued

Across the Valley, they can be seen, some good, some bad, some just plain nasty: Facebook pages that are self-dedicated to “public corruption.”

Which is well and good as long as the information being posted is truthful and accurate.

But there are some Facebook posts, Facebook pages, I see go by that call some elected Valley official a crook, and I think — One day, you may get sued, and you won’t see it coming.

Here is the defamation law made simple: Libel (the printed word) vs. slander (the spoken word).

The law of defamation varies from state to state, but most have the same general rules — if you think you have been defamed, you have to show a judge, a jury, that the injurious information has been published; that it was false; and that it was done with malicious intent (Legal Malice).

The malicious part is rather tricky and only applies to public figures. For it to be applicable to a defamation lawsuit, it must be proven in a court of law that the person making the false statement did so even though he/she knew it wasn’t true or did so without first bothering to check the facts.

If the libel is directed at a private citizen, a store owner, the plaintiff must only show that the FB post was false and the poster was sloppy with the facts.

One more thing worth knowing: multiple courts across various jurisdictions have ruled that there is no legitimate expectation of privacy on Facebook — even when users take steps to keep certain content “private.” So, the idea that something posted only to your “friends” is somehow protected? Think again.

Private citizens, of course, are afforded a lot more protection than public figures.

Public figures, on the other hand, are different. They can be satirized and held to ridicule, but someone on social media still can’t publish lies about them or write satire without making it clear to everyone that it is indeed satire.

The Hustler Case

The most famous defamation lawsuit involved the publisher of Hustler Magazine, Larry Flynt, and the now deceased preacher and founder of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell. In 1983, Hustler published a parody ad of an alcoholic drink, Campari, in which Falwell recounted an incestuous relationship with his mother while growing up.

I know, sick stuff. But this was Hustler.

Long story short, Falwell sued Flynt and was awarded $150,000 for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Flynt filed an appeal that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Flynt’s favor. Falwell was a public figure and open to ridicule, the Court said. The only thing Hustler couldn’t do with the preacher, or any other public figure for that matter, is publish something made up to look like the truth when it’s clearly false.

In other words, a parody or satire of any public official has to appear so to any reasonable person. Clearly, anyone seeing the Falwell ad in Hustler Magazine instantly knew it was a put-on.

But what about the emotional distress? Well, that comes with the territory. Being a public official does indeed open oneself up to attacks on social media.

Court Rulings

Now, some people who get targeted on Facebook will fight back — hard. Consider what happened recently in Richmond, Va., where an unsuccessful school board candidate named P.H. “Cruz” Sherman sued the man who beat him in the election over statements posted on the winner’s campaign Facebook page.

The winning candidate had portrayed Sherman as a “One-Man Crimewave” with an alleged criminal background that included, according to the posts, “everything from attempted murder to possession of illegal avoidance devices.”

Sherman filed suit in Richmond Circuit Court seeking $2 million in damages, claiming the Facebook posts caused him “great humiliation, shame, vilification, exposure to public infamy, scandal, and disgrace” — and hurt his business on top of it.

As far as I can tell, the case hasn’t yet been settled, but the plaintiff did admit, prior to the campaign, that he had a criminal background, which included his participation in a gang as a young man and an attempt to shoot someone while on probation.

So why did he even get into running for public office, who knows.

Just across the state line philosophically, something equally instructive happened recently in St. Charles County, Mo. A county councilman sued a constituent over a Facebook comment the constituent claimed was nothing more than self-deprecating humor.

Officials noted it was the first time a county official had ever sued a constituent for defamation. The councilman said he’d consider dropping the lawsuit if the constituent came to a county council meeting and publicly apologized. The constituent said he had no choice but to lawyer up and fight.

Which makes exactly the point. Even if a defamation lawsuit goes nowhere, you are still looking at attorneys’ fees, court appearances, and depositions. It is an expensive, exhausting, time-consuming mess — win or lose.

Same rules obviously apply for X, formerly known as Twitter, and really any social media platform where you post publicly.

So, when I see some of this malicious stuff go by on Facebook, especially if it concerns a Valley public official or relatives of public officials, or employees who work for a city, school district or county, I think: I hope you have all your facts straight. Because a lawsuit for libel or defamation of character is not pretty. Not to mention expensive. Which is why we don’t see many of these defamation lawsuits pass us by on the court dockets.

Most public officials just choose to ignore what was written about them, knowing this too shall pass.

Still, for those falsely maligned, the stress will take its toll.