Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
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Vol.40 N° 74
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Vol. 40, Nº 74 (2022), 722-740
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Recibido el 07/08/22 Aceptado el 22/09/22
Remedies against Online Defamation
of Public Figures
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.4074.40
Dmytro Gryn *
Denys Oliinyk **
Oleksii Iakubin ***
Vasyl Rossikhin ****
Abstract
In legal literature, the dissemination of false information on the
Internet is referred to as online defamation. However, Ukrainian
legislation does not enshrine this term, which creates diculties
with respect to legal protection against online defamation. So, the
aim of the article is to determine the legal remedies for countering
defamation of public gures on the Internet. The research involved
the following methods: analysis, case study, graphic methods.
The study revealed the main contradictions in defamation
research and identied unexplored aspects of the issue. The legislation of
Ukraine and other countries of the world with regard to defamation and
protection against libel is examined. International aspects of providing
protection against defamation and the researchers’ recommendations on
how to balance the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy
are studied. Highlighted in the conclusions are that the study established
the need to improve Ukraine’s legislative framework on defamation issues,
make changes in educational programs and improve the media literacy of
the population. Prospects for future research include the study of the means
of settlement of defamation cases at the international level.
Keywords: online defamation; legislation; legal protection; criminal
liability; freedom of expression.
* Postgraduate Student, Institute of Public Administration, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University,
61022, Kharkiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1687-6923
** PhD in Public Administration, Associate Professor, Department of Public Policy, Institute of Public
Administration, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, 61022, Kharkiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7312-8337
*** PhD in Political Science, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Sociology and Law,
National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, 03056, Kyiv,
Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8898-4563
**** Doctor of Law Sciences, Vice-rector, Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, 61058, Kharkiv,
Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3423-8896
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Recursos contra la difamación en línea de guras
públicas
Resumen
En la literatura legal, la difusión de información falsa en Internet se
conoce como difamación en línea. Sin embargo, la legislación de Ucrania
no consagra este término, lo que genera dicultades con respecto a la
protección legal contra la difamación en línea. Entonces, el objetivo del
artículo es determinar los recursos legales para contrarrestar la difamación
de guras públicas en Internet. La investigación involucró los siguientes
métodos: análisis, estudio de casos, métodos grácos. El estudio reveló
las principales contradicciones en la investigación sobre difamación
e identicó aspectos inexplorados del tema. Se examina la legislación
de Ucrania y otros países del mundo con respecto a la difamación y la
protección contra la calumnia. Se estudian los aspectos internacionales
de brindar protección contra la difamación y las recomendaciones de los
investigadores sobre cómo equilibrar el derecho a la libertad de expresión
y el derecho a la privacidad. Destacan en las conclusiones que estudio
estableció la necesidad de mejorar el marco legislativo de Ucrania sobre
cuestiones de difamación, realizar cambios en los programas educativos
y mejorar la alfabetización mediática de la población. Las perspectivas de
futuras investigaciones incluyen el estudio de los medios de solución de los
casos de difamación a nivel internacional.
Palabras clave: difamación online; legislación; protección jurídica;
responsabilidad penal; libertad de expresión.
Introduction
Information has become one of the most valuable resources. The
development of means of communication enabled distribution of
information among a wide range of users in the shortest possible time
and at minimal cost. Information has become a key means of shaping
the public attitude to certain events or individuals. A particular political
party, personality, programme or decision can win the majority of votes
in an election depending on the public attitude (positive or negative).
This will further aect the course of the country as a whole, including the
international policy (Novytskyi and Novytska, 2016).
The increasingly rapid development of communication tools urges
the issue of the contradiction between freedom of speech and the right
to the protection of personal data. This contradiction is especially acute
when information disseminated in one way or other harms an individual,
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Dmytro Gryn, Denys Oliinyk, Oleksii Iakubin y Vasyl Rossikhin
Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
business or country. The legal science denes the case when disseminated
information causes harm, shames, deprives of a good name in a certain way
as defamation.
Many researchers studied defamation, as well as the border between
the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy in its context
(Agarwal, 2020; Bevz et al., 2021; Petkova, 2019; Schulz, 2018). They do
not, however agree on a number of aspects of the problem. The main one
is the reliability of disseminated information. When dening defamation,
researchers have no single view on whether the information that injures the
reputation should be true or fabricated. Second, there are no clear criteria
regarding the harm caused: what can be considered as a harm, how to
measure it, etc.
Third, it is not determined who is responsible for defamation and in what
cases. The following parties are involved in the dissemination of harmful
information: the source of information, the person who disseminated it,
and also who used the information to cause harm (Novytskyi and Novytska,
2016). The questions about who bears the responsibility (and should bear
it) among them and to what extent remain unsolved.
The issue of protection against the spread of harmful information, in
particular online defamation, is extremely urgent, especially in view of the
pace and scale of development of Internet communications. It is especially
acute because the outlined theoretical aspects of defamation are not certain
both in the scientic literature and in the legislation of many countries.
In particular, the article examines the legislation of Ukraine because the
defamation problem in the country is highly relevant in the course of
military confrontation.
So, the aim of the article is to determine the legislative means of
countering the spread of harmful information about public gures on the
Internet. The aim involves the following objectives:
• clarify the denition of the term “defamation” and some theoretical
aspects of the issue;
• examine the legislation of Ukraine regarding defamation and
legislative regulation of related issues;
• survey the legislative provision of protection against defamation of
individual countries;
• conduct a case-study of defamation cases using the example of
spreading harmful information about Ukraine and Ukrainian public
gures in the course of military confrontation;
• determine legal remedies against online defamation of public
gures.
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1. Literature Review
The terms “defamation” and “online defamation” are generally
similar, they mean dissemination of harmful information about a person,
business or country. The dierence is in the means of disseminating
such information. Xiaobing and Yongfeng (2018) note that compared to
traditional defamation, online defamation is characterized by a high degree
of “occultism”, high speed of dissemination, and signicant attention.
Moreover, the cost of legal proceedings is low, which makes defamation
crimes easier to implement and more dicult to eliminate.
The fact that the legislation of Ukraine lacks this term is the main reason
for the imperfection of means of protection against online defamation, as
well as defamation in general. Besides, modern scientic and legal literature
provides no single denition of defamation. Disagreements relate to such
important criteria as the reliability of information, determining the damage
caused, establishing those who are responsible, the type of responsibility,
etc.
Rooksby (2018) considers defamation as a ground for bringing an
action which, if satised, provides monetary compensation for reputational
damage, which is caused by false statements made by others. Magalla
(2018) denes defamation as an action of tort in which one person provides
false information about another person in any way. The person providing
the information is known as the defendant before the court, the other is
known as the plainti. Such information may be published and disclosed
by any means, causing damage to reputation or injury to another person.
Moutos et al. (2020) consider a false or defamatory statement as one
of the key elements of a satised defamation claim. With the exception
of some nuances, these researchers agree that the information given to
third parties shall be primarily false. There is, however a point of view
that defamation involves the transfer of any information, including true
information. Thus, Sytko and Shapovalenko (2018) reveal defamation as
“the public distribution of true or fabricated information that degrades the
honour, dignity and harms business reputation of a citizen or organization.”
Some researchers focus not only on the reliability of information, but
also on its other characteristics. Telychko and Rekun (2021) believe that
the concept of defamation is supposed to mean the illegal collection and
distribution of false information about a person’s private life that degrades
his/her honour and dignity. So, the researchers interpret defamation as
the dissemination of information about private life, not the information
related to professional activity or other spheres. According to researchers,
defamation implies not only spreading, but also collecting harmful
information.
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Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
Contrary to this view, some researchers separate the spread of false
information from the spread of private information through the use of
special terms. For example, Solo (2019) denes defamation as the spread of
false statements that harm a person’s reputation. The researcher interprets
doxing an individual as the publication of a person’s private information,
such as his/her home address or that of his/her family members.
The issue of measuring damage caused by defamation is also poorly
studied. According to Algburi and Igaab (2021), defamation refers to
accusations of wrongdoing. Navrotska et al. (2021) hold a similar opinion,
they refer defamation as slandering an admittedly innocent. In this case,
the damage caused by defamation moves to a dierent level, because it
contains accusations of violation of the law. However, most researchers
agree that defamation refers rather to the disclosure of information that
degrades a person’s dignity or harms a person’s reputation.
In addition to disagreements about the nature of information and
measurement of the harm, researchers do not have a common opinion
about responsibility in case of defamation. Novytskyi and Novytska (2016)
point out that if defamation is dened as a violation of the right to protect
business reputation, the criminal liability occurs.
However, most authors agree Xiaobing and Yongfeng (2018). The
authors note that criminal laws and excessive judicial regulation of freedom
of speech on the Internet can undermine the right to freedom of expression.
In particular, this applies to international legislation. Nielsen (2019) notes
that the conict between defamation, privacy and freedom of speech is very
contradictory, even in the EU.
Therefore, the issue of balancing the right to freedom of speech and the
right to privacy is extremely important in the modern information society.
This applies to both the state and interstate levels. At the international
level, conict resolution is complicated by the dierences in the legislation
of dierent countries.
The issue of who shall be responsible for defamation remains unsolved,
as well as who was engaged in the collection of information or its
distribution, whether this person was aware that the information was false,
etc. The next unresolved issue is should website owners, social media users
with a certain number of followers, site administrators and so on be held
responsible. Some researchers even consider the responsibility of search
engine operators (Yew, 2019).
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2. Methodology
The research involved the following methods: scientic literature survey
to clarify the aspects of the studied concepts, as well as the analysis of the
legislative framework of Ukraine and other countries to establish the legal
aspects of the issue under research; case study to describe an example of
the studied problem and its consequences; graphical methods for visual
presentation of the obtained results.
The research is comprehensive, so it was divided into separate related
stages.
The rst stage was to determine that the studied concept of defamation
has signicant dierences in terms of interpretation by researchers. It
was established that such discrepancies are explained by the absence of
the concept of defamation in Ukrainian legislation. The key controversial
aspects of defamation were identied, and the main problem of inadequate
legal protection against defamation was revealed. Controversies primarily
concern the reliability of the disseminated information, measuring harm
caused, and the identication of those guilty of defamation. The problem of
legal protection is the imperfection of the legislative framework.
The second stage of the study describes the main legislative acts related
to the protection of individuals, businesses, and the country from false
information distributed online. The legislative framework of Ukraine
and other countries of the world was studied. It was established that the
Ukrainian legislative framework provides for ways of protection against the
spread of false information and the right to restore honour and dignity.
But it lacks the term “defamation”, which distinguishes Ukrainian
legislation from the legal systems of some other countries. The survey of
the legislation of these countries lead to the conclusion about the areas
of protection against defamation that can be introduced in Ukraine. Such
areas relate, in particular, to innovations in the legislative framework,
educational programmes in schools, and improving the media literacy of
the population.
The third stage of the research involved a case study on the example of
the current military and political events in Ukraine. This stage conrms
the importance and relevance of protection against false information
distributed on the Internet for Ukraine and its public gures. In particular,
the importance of the inuence of defamation and its role in the development
of the military conict on the territory of Ukraine was determined. Ukraine
and its public gures were chosen as an object of study because of the
signicant impact of defamation on events in the country. This is conrmed
by a review of scientic literature and analytical data on the consequences
of defamation against a country.
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Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
The last stage of the study involved a discussion regarding means of
protection against online defamation. International approaches to changes
in the legislative framework to be introduced for eective protection
against defamation in Ukraine were considered. The recommendations of
researchers for improving protection against defamation were studied.
Ways to establish a balance between the protection of the right to freedom
of speech and the right to privacy are outlined. Means of measuring damage
and determining responsibility, in particular, the categories of persons
responsible for defamation were provided. The problem of settlement of
defamation cases in international legislation was revealed.
The conclusion of the article provides that further research should focus
on establishing the need for criminal liability for defamation. It is also
necessary to detail the problems of the international enforcement of court
decisions on defamation and to determine the means to solve them.
3. Results
3.1. Problems of dening the concept of defamation
Information technologies have penetrated into all spheres of human
activity in recent decades. Domestic aairs, professional activities, as
well as state-level issues are increasingly being carried out and solved
online. The so-called digital transformation is a universally recognized
necessity as it provides unconditional benets to society. First, it is an
increased mobility due to the acceleration and facilitation of most actions
of any nature. Internet technologies are used in virtually all aairs — from
purchasing to professional tasks that can be fullled anytime and anywhere.
Second, it is an increased security, in particular the possibility of cashless
payments, information protection technologies, fraud prevention, video
surveillance, etc. Third, it is the savings of both individuals, businesses and
the state through the introduction of electronic document management,
electronic services, production automation, etc. Fourth, they provide wider
opportunities in the elds of science and education (in particular, distance
learning), medicine, culture and art.
The established fact of the need for the development of information
technologies in the world provides not only benets, but also the lack of
alternatives to the introduction of innovations. This poses numerous
challenges to modern states, economies, businesses, and individuals.
Failure to implement information technology may entail signicant
losses. Their implementation, however, hides many problematic issues.
In addition to the organizational aspect, it is dangerous to signicantly
strengthen information inuence, which increases in the course of digital
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
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transformation. The information can have both positive and negative
impact on individuals, businesses, and even on the state. This determined
the emergence of the concept of information war.
The distribution of any information is justied by freedom of speech,
on the one hand. On the other hand, it may overlap with the violation of
the right to privacy. This is ground for the emergence of the institution of
defamation. In the most general sense, defamation is the dissemination of
information that harms the reputation of a certain subject of information.
However, the researchers interpret this term dierently, so it needs to be
claried.
The literature review revealed that researchers do not agree on the
reliability of harmful information. Some of them believe that defamation
is primarily the collection and distribution of false information. Others
admit that spreading true information that harms reputation can also be
considered defamation.
The latter consider that dissemination of false information is denoted by
the term “slander”. Besides, there is no single approach to understanding
the harm caused by information dissemination. In particular, how to
measure the damage, how to conrm the fact of the damage, as well as the
scope of damage, etc. Finally, there is no clear indication of who should be
liable for defamation and in which cases.
The conicting views of researchers on aspects of the concept of
defamation are explained by the dierence in its interpretations in the
legal systems of dierent countries. The legislation of Ukraine lacks this
term, which causes certain discrepancies on the denition of defamation
by Ukrainian scholars. The problem of inadequate protection against the
dissemination of harmful information arises in the absence of clear criteria
for dening defamation in the legal system of Ukraine.
3.2. Legislative provision of protection against harmful
information in Ukraine and the world
The lack of the concept of defamation in Ukrainian legislation does not
mean that the country’s legal system does not provide for legal protection
against harmful information in general. Figure 1 shows the legislative acts
of Ukraine relating to legal protection against harmful information.
Figure 1 shows that Ukraine provides for responsibility for the
dissemination of false and shameful information. The right of the person in
relation to whom such information was disseminated to defend and refute
the information is also provided.
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Dmytro Gryn, Denys Oliinyk, Oleksii Iakubin y Vasyl Rossikhin
Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
Figure 1: Legislative protection against harmful information in Ukraine
(Civil Code of Ukraine No. 435-IV, 2003; Law of Ukraine No. 2657-XII, 1992;
Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine No. 1, 2009).
In general, this is in line with the Council of Europe’s standards set out
in Resolution 1577 (2007) Towards decriminalisation of defamation. The
Resolution states that freedom of expression cannot be unlimited, however:
“Statements or allegations which are made in the public interest, even if they
prove to be inaccurate, should not be punishable provided that they were made
without knowledge of their inaccuracy, without intention to cause harm, and their
truthfulness was checked with proper diligence” (Parliamentary Assembly, 2007).
The Human Rights Committee holds a similar view in its General
Comment No. 34 “Article 19. Freedom of expression”: if a person was in
good faith mistaken about the information, he/she disseminated, he should
not be held criminally liable (Koliver, 2011).
However, the legislation of many countries provides for liability for
defamation (Figure 2).
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
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Figure 2: Legislation and anti-defamation measures in dierent countries (BBC
News, 2018; Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend,
2017; Etzold, 2017; European Commission, 2018; Telychko and Rekun, 2021;
Haciyakupoglu et al., 2018; Qi et al., 2018; Zharovskyi, 2018)
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Dmytro Gryn, Denys Oliinyk, Oleksii Iakubin y Vasyl Rossikhin
Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
Figure 2 shows the decisive steps taken by some countries to counter the
spread of false information. However, such actions are often opposed by the
opposition, whose main argument is the violation of the right to freedom of
speech. However, the unrestrained spread of misinformation, especially on
major online platforms, can be harmful to both individuals and the country.
Disinformation creates wrong views, imposes biased judgments, and can
incite unwarranted enmity, promote violence, etc. Therefore, the spread of
false information should be limited in a certain way, in particular, through
the right to refute such information, as well as through shaping critical
thinking among information users.
3.3. Case-study on the example of current military and political
events in Ukraine
Russian propaganda and defamation of the aggressor in relation to
Ukraine is an extremely relevant example of the spread of false and harmful
information. This issue is especially acute in the world of catastrophic
consequences caused by such information.
Ciuriak (2022) notes that in an information society, the government of
a country with more power can formulate and control the narratives of the
population. That is, people perceive imposed thoughts as their own views.
This is how preparations for war are carried out according to the formula:
delegitimization of the target country; “demonization” of the country;
submitting complaints that legitimize the use of force; inventing an excuse
or pretext for war. Besides, the invasion must be large-scale and interpreted
as “liberation”, and the invaders must appear as “saviours”.
These were the principles for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ciuriak
(2022) reveals the formula he dened regarding the war in Ukraine as
follows.
Table 1: Components of the formula for preparing for war against Ukraine in
the context of its defamation by the aggressor (Ciuriak, 2022).
Components
of the formula Content and main slogans of defamation against
Ukraine
Delegitimization “Ukraine is not a real country”, although it is a founding
member of the UN and was recognized by Russia after the
collapse of the USSR
Demonization “Ukraine is full of Nazis”, although the consolidated far-right
share of votes in the last Ukrainian elections was only 2.25%
of the votes. Besides, the President of Ukraine is a Jew
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Complaints
“Russia was robbed by transferring “historical Russian lands”
to Ukraine under the Russian-led Soviet Union.” “Russia was
betrayed because of NATO expansion” (although Ukraine is
not a NATO member). “There is a threat of mass destruction
of Russians”, although Ukrainianization does not threaten
the 144 million population of Russia. Some Ukrainians speak
Russian, but identify themselves mostly as Ukrainians
The reason for
the war
“The invasion was necessary to stop the genocide in Donbas.”
However, Donbas has been already occupied by Russian
troops at that time
Ian Garner (2022) conducted a study of the reaction of users of groups
in Russian social networks to the invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the
researcher focused on violence and murders in the city of Bucha. His
work proves that the “formula” applied by the aggressor works as the
leaders of the aggressor country expected. The researcher focuses on three
channels, each having more than 60 thousand subscribers. He analysed
the publications that appeared within two days after the start of the Bucha
discussion in mass media. He selected ten posts by the largest number of
comments and top ten comments by user reaction to each post. As a result,
Garner determined that at least half of the users in that sample called on
the Russian military to be more violent in their oensive in Ukraine. Many
messages concerned individual personalities, in particular, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyi (Garner, 2022).
The described tragedy is an example of the “successful” use of defamation
by one country against another to achieve its goals. This conrms that
defamation can have catastrophic consequences. Therefore, the denition
and introduction of means of protection against it is an important issue
both for individuals and for the country.
4. Discussion
4.1. Remedies against online defamation
The conducted research allows us to identify a number of problems
regarding the means of legal protection against online defamation. First,
Ukrainian legislation lacks the term “defamation”. Second, there are
signicant dierences in the interpretation of this concept by researchers.
The dierences relate, rst of all, to the reliability of the disseminated
information, measuring damage, and the establishment of liability for
defamation.
Third, defamation against Ukraine and individual public gures of the
country leads to catastrophic consequences. These facts determine the
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Dmytro Gryn, Denys Oliinyk, Oleksii Iakubin y Vasyl Rossikhin
Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
relevance and necessity of nding and implementing appropriate measures
of legal protection against defamation. The analysis of the global practice of
protection against defamation suggest that such measures may concern the
improvement of the legislative framework, educational programmes, and
the improvement of media literacy.
The foregoing justies the conclusion that Ukrainian legislation requires
legislative enshrinement of defamation. The law on defamation should
provide for an unambiguous interpretation of this term, an algorithm for
determining the damage caused and liability depending on the legally
dened conditions. Telychko and Rekun (2021) have a similar opinion on
this issue. The researchers note an increase in the number of cases related
to the protection of honour, dignity and business reputation on the Internet.
This fact necessitates legal enshrinement of responsibility for defamation.
The creators of sites and administrators of web pages for the distribution of
false, compromising information shall bear the responsibility. Researchers
propose the adoption of the Law on Defamation on the Internet, which has
certain nuances compared to traditional defamation.
In the event of a decision to make such changes in the legislation, a
dilemma regarding the reliability of information remains the priority issue.
As noted, there is a view that defamation can include the dissemination
of any information that harms reputation, even true information. In
particular, Sytko and Shapovalenko (2018), who are the authors of the legal
dictionary, hold this opinion. However, most authors focus on the spread
of false information. They associate the disclosure of true information with
other terms (for example, doxing) and do not associate it with defamation.
Moutos et al. (2020) point out that satised defamation actions must
establish four key elements: the existence of a false or defamatory statement;
guilt that is at least equal to negligence; non-privileged communication
to a third party; damage or loss suered by the plainti as a result of the
application.
If the opinion that defamation is the dissemination of false information
is accepted, the next controversial issue is whether criminal liability occurs
for it. Magalla (2018) notes that defamation law depends on whether it is
treated as a criminal oense or a civil oence.
Novytskyi and Novytska (2016) consider it logical to establish criminal
liability for defamation. This is legitimate when defamation is identied with
violation of the right for the protection of business reputation, intentional
dissemination of disinformation in order to cause harm. Researchers
support their views by the existence of such laws in most democratic
countries. They also note that the 1961 Criminal Code of Ukraine contained
an article providing for criminal liability for defamation. However, this
action was decriminalized in 2001.
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It should be noted that the modern world community considers
freedom, in particular freedom of expression, as one of the main values. It
should, however, be agreed that liability for defamation should be criminal
only in particularly serious cases. For example, if we dene slandering a
person of committing illegal acts as defamation. This is how defamation
is considered in the works of Algburi and Igaab (2021) and Navrotska et
al. (2021). Contrary to this opinion, Rooksby (2018) believes that liability
for defamation involves monetary compensation for damage to reputation.
Therefore, liability should depend on the scope of damage caused. The
scope of damage must be clearly established and its denition must be
enshrined in legislation.
Xiaobing and Yongfeng (2018) focus on clarifying the question of
who should be liable for defamation. It must be a natural person who has
criminal liability and has reached the age of criminal liability. Researchers
divide such people into ve categories.
The rst category includes those who published slander on the Internet,
fabricated or falsied the original content of information to the detriment of
the reputation of others. The second category consists of those who realize
that the information is false and harms the reputation of others. The third
category includes persons who fabricated information and organize others
to spread it. The fourth category includes persons who falsify the original
information of other individuals, organize and manage the distribution of
such information. The fth category consists of network service providers.
The study was conducted in China, and the researchers note that the rst,
third and fourth categories of persons are not controversial in judicial
practice. The second and fth categories require detailed analysis.
Some researchers list search engine operators among others responsible
for defamation. They should not be automatically released from liability for
search results and autocomplete function. The scope of potential liability
should, however, be limited (Yew, 2019).
Drawing up of a plan of measures to combat defamation should be
preceded by coordination of the specied aspects of defamation. Solo (2019)
oers recommendations for countering defamation and doxing (the study
was conducted in the USA). The improvements relate mostly to changes
in the legislative framework and are fairly strict methods of countering
defamation:
• defamation should entail enforcement of criminal legislation;
• defamation should be recognized as a criminal oense and
prosecuted accordingly [in the United States];
• publishing a home address on the Internet without a person’s
consent should be dened as a crime;
736
Dmytro Gryn, Denys Oliinyk, Oleksii Iakubin y Vasyl Rossikhin
Remedies against Online Defamation of Public Figures
• small claims courts should be authorized to hear defamation or
doxing claims;
• website owners must log the IP addresses of their website users for
ve years;
• website owners should not be able to hide their identity when
registering a domain name;
• website owners should be held liable for defamation or doxing
by a website user. Liability occurs if the website owner does not
remove the relevant information after a complaint by the subject of
defamation/doxing;
• search engines should be prohibited from indexing and displaying
hyperlinks to websites known for defamation or doxing;
• websites that deal with archiving should stop caching or archiving
websites known for defamation or doxing;
• search engines should comply with court orders to remove
defamation or doxing hyperlinks on third-party websites;
• foreign defamation or doxing judgments should be enforceable in
the US (Solo, 2019).
The improvements referred to above can be applied in practice in
relation to changes in Ukrainian legislation by adapting them to Ukrainian
realities. It should be noted that defamation of the country’s public gures
both domestically and internationally is the main problem in Ukrainian
practice. This fact should be taken into account when introducing legislative
changes.
Nielsen (2019) notes on the issue of international settlement of
defamation cases that the cooperation of states will facilitate the
enforcement of judgements. The researcher gives the example of the EU,
which has special conventions and supranational legislation. But in case
that the judgement conicts with the legislation of the state where its
enforcement is required, such a state may refuse to enforce.
Conclusions
The high inuence, both positive and negative, of information in modern
society determined the relevance of the study of defamation aspects. This
especially applies to the dissemination of false information, which is known
to be harmful to the reputation of a certain person, business, or country.
The problem of defamation in Ukraine is the lack of this term in the
national legislation. This causes the dierences in the interpretation of the
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term by researchers and the diculties in providing legal protection against
defamation.
A survey of the legislation of some countries gave grounds to conclude
that the term “defamation” is used in the legal systems of other countries.
The countries established dierent types of responsibility for defamation,
in particular, nes and criminal liability. But the problem of balancing the
right to freedom of speech and privacy still remains unresolved even in
those countries.
The legal protection against online defamation in Ukraine should
start with the introduction of changes to the legislative framework.
Besides, the example of Italy shows that it is advisable to introduce special
programmes for schoolchildren. Those programmes will aim to develop
skills of recognizing false information on the Internet. The state should also
introduce measures to improve the media literacy of the population.
Further research may detail the means of settling defamation cases
at the international level. An important prospect is establishing criminal
liability for defamation and the cases in which it may occur.
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Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
en octubre de 2022, por el Fondo Editorial Serbiluz,
Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo-Venezuela
Vol.40 Nº 74
