Defamation

With the concurrent explosion of social media and the increasingly politicized way social activists are trying to dictate how language should be used, it is not surprising that defamation suits have exploded. Defamation covers untruthful comments that are either written (libel) or spoken (slander) that are falsely purported to be true, with the intent to harm a specific person. Defamation is sometimes a grey area, especially when it clashes with the First Amendment.

Celebrities, government officials, and others who are categorized as “public” have to prove intent of malice, unlike private individuals. First Lady Melania Trump successfully won and settled multimillion dollar defamation suits against The Daily Mail and a blogger in Maryland for libel over allegations that she worked secretly as a private escort while under contract with a modeling agency in the 1990s.