Mother Sues After Bebo Story Hits Press

slick_shoes notes a story out of England: a woman named Amanda Hudson is suing six national newspapers for defamation and breach of privacy after they ran stories based on her 15-year-old daughter's exaggerated claims about her party, published on her Bebo site. The party was held at the family's £4m villa in Spain, and the daughter's account claimed that jewelery had been stolen and furniture and a television set thrown into the swimming pool; in addition there were claims of sex and drug use. The mother says that this was all falsehood and exaggeration. A number of newspapers picked up claims and photos from Bebo and ran them nationally. From the article: "The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites."

Comments

Editors?

[TheSkyIsPurple]

> Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites

Isn't that what newspaper reporters and editors are for?

Re:Editors?

[spun]

Fact checking is so last century. In the NEW and CONNECTED world of WEB 2.0, flash-mobs in the blogosphere fact check everything for you!

Re:Editors?

[TheSkyIsPurple]

You'd think that having incorrect information would tend to dissuade customers from parting with their money

Re:Editors?

[Spuds]

You'd think that having incorrect information would tend to dissuade customers from parting with their money

You'd think, but sadly, no.

Re:Editors?

[Bloke down the pub]

You'd think that having incorrect information would tend to dissuade customers from parting with their money

If that was true most of the tabloids would have gone bankrupt years ago.

Re:Editors?

[metamechanical]

Most people don't care about true things. They care about exciting things. And to them, unfortunately, the truth is usually not exciting.

Re:Editors?

[infonography]

Sadly for the plaintiff the account came from a member of the family in a published journal (her daughter's website). How many times have there been stories of say Slashdot which were questionable. Then the comments started to fly.

Still it all boils down to the daughter's web posting. It's close enough a legitimate source for a judge to toss it. If a journalist made it up out of whole clothe that's one thing this is from a direct source.

Who may be a liar.

Re:Editors?

[DaedalusHKX]

Actually the ONLY way they can get away with it and NOT lose the lawsuit is to have said throughout the story "the young, 15 year old girl's blog CLAIMS that... etc etc."

If they said "and in related news, etc mansion was host to a party and etc got high, knocked up and smashed a TV" that's libel/defamation. Claims have to be attributed as such. Only verified information can be claimed to be true. I wager most newssources wouldn't verify shit they run anymore than most consumers of said news sources would actually VERIFY the news sources reports.

Prime example. Remember Die Hard 4? Remember the scene where everyone watches the bad guys take out the capitol? (or was it the white house?) Remember how the people near there go outside and see it is okay and still standing? What about all the other poor bastards who have no way of verifying or cannot be bothered or have had their government run communications get taken out? (Hence why i recommend everyone have a CB radio or ham rig in their home, even without repeaters, the chain effect works enough to cover a whole region of concerned individuals.)

Verification, personal inquiry are both important factors of stories, and journalists have discovered that yellow journalism works. Why report a "claim" as a "claim"? Because it keeps the libel cases away from your door.

Re:Editors?

[AKAImBatman]

Pff. You guys need to learn how the business works.

Day 1: "Daughter claims rich family had a drunken orgy party!"

Day 2: "Mother claims daughter told an 'embellished' story about the party"

There you go. A story and a retraction. Both of which are perfectly legal and true. The mother can sue all she wants, but what she should be doing is stringing up her daughter by her pinky toe. Instead, we end up with...

Day 3: "Family sues newspapers for reporting embellished story"

Even more sales! (Cha-ching!)

Re:Editors?

[Zemran]

A Russian friend of mine once said that the difference between the east and the west is that in the east we always knew it was propaganda. :-)

Rich teenage girl parties are news?

[Rycross]

The fact that some party thrown by a rich 15 year old girl is national news is kind-of depressing. Am I missing something?

Re:Rich teenage girl parties are news?

[pha7boy]

The fact that newspapers published the account is not "news for nerds." The story is just background for what actually is important news - namely that there could be precedent in the UK for holding news organizations accountable for publishing second hand information without fact checking.

I wonder if the "compromise" will be that from now on newspapers will add "as reported on [insert blog name here]" on every such story meaning that they would pass responsibility for accuracy to the original source.

typical irresonsible parent

[speedtux]

The only relevant fact that newspapers needed to check was that it was actually the 15-year old daughter that put it up for the world to see. Other than that, as the legal guardian, if the mother didn't want her daughter to post this information, she should have been a better parent.

There might actually be a case others have against the mother for defamation of character, since she is responsible for the actions of her daughter, and her daughter might have defamed them.

I wish parents would stop blaming other people for their own failings. Until their children come off age, what the kids do and what happens to the kids is the parents' sole responsibility.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to BS

[Madman]

Newspapers have always had the responsibility to verify their stories, why should that change simply because the information's off the web?

Re:What an age we live in.

[shalla]

Publishing something does not make it a fact. It simply makes it published. If the information is not true, you can still get your pants sued off, as these newspapers are finding out.

That's why you should always check your sources. Learn to protect yourself from libel suits.

Ummm

[EmagGeek]

"The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites."

Aren't journalists supposed to do this ANYWAY?

The problem with 24hour news

[Matt Perry]

This is what you get when you have multiple 24-hour news channels and lots of news web sites itching to have something new. There's only so much real news, and not enough of it to even fill one TV channel with content. So they have to dig for crap. This is what you get.