RP laws inadequate for cyber defamation

POSTSCRIPT By Federico D. Pascual Jr.
The Philippine Star

CYBER LIBEL: We in the Philippines are still a long way off in rewriting our libel law to cover new communication phenomena, including apparent libel or defamation perpetrated across cyber space.

Even our laws regulating e-commerce, or business transacted via the Internet, have fallen behind world trends. This has resulted at times in government’s inability to prosecute fully cyber criminals who pull off dirty tricks with the whole world watching.

It may or may not be instructive, but in a ruling reported Monday by the Associated Press, the California Supreme Court said that websites that publish inflammatory information written by other parties cannot be sued for libel.

The decision favoring free online expression was a victory for a San Diego woman who was sued by two doctors after she posted an allegedly libelous email on two websites.

Concerned that a ruling against her would expose them also to liability, some of Internet’s biggest names – including Amazon.com, America Online Inc., eBay Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. – took her side.