Online Defamation: The General Legal Picture
Online defamation fits, independently of the platform, into one and the same legal frame: social network, forum, news site or blog — what matters is how the information is disseminated and who answers for it. Georgian law gives two core norms here: the protection of personal non-property rights, and the tort of disseminating damaging information. Claims built on these two operate regardless of the type of content and the platform.
Dissemination and Publicising: The Core of the Tort
The basis of compensation for online defamation is Article 993 of the Civil Code: a person who intentionally or negligently disseminates or publicises facts damaging to another person's property must compensate the damage arising therefrom, where these facts are evidently incorrect. In the online environment the concept of dissemination is broad: a post, a repost, sharing a link and even a comment may qualify as dissemination, because the information reaches a new audience. At the same time, no obligation to compensate arises for statements that serve the protection of lawful public interests — this exception is the boundary of public discussion.
Cessation and Refutation: The Instruments of Personal Rights
The instruments of early reaction precede compensation and lie in Article 18 of the Civil Code. A person has the right, through the court, to protect honour, dignity, the secrecy of private life, personal inviolability or business reputation from infringement. A demand of cessation of the infringement is addressed directly to the infringer, and where the infringing information has been disseminated through mass-information means, its refutation must likewise occur through those same means. The refutation instrument is especially important online: the same audience that saw the infringing content must see the correcting information. Moreover, a person whose honour and dignity have been infringed by information published in mass-information means has the right to publish response information in the same means (Article 18).
The Boundary of Abuse of Right
The rights of a defamation victim also have a boundary. Under Article 115 of the Civil Code, a civil right must be exercised lawfully, and it is inadmissible to exercise a right solely with the purpose of harming another. In online reality this means that applying to court and threats cannot become an instrument for suppressing criticism: if demands are evidently used to silence lawful criticism, such conduct will be assessed as abuse of right.