Can I get sued for this?

[Endedman67]

Hello,
My question may sound very stupid.. I don't know anything about the law so here I am.
2 days ago on my Twitter, I (possibly) spread misinformation about a south Asian actor.
This actor was accused of rape, but the charges were dropped for "lack of evidence". I don't think it necessarily means that he's innocent but that's not the subject anyway.
His fans jumped on me, screened all of my tweets where i said that he raped that woman, and sent them in a email to his agency. They're pretty sure I'm gonna get in trouble (since he was apparently proven "innocent") and also claiming that I'll get jail time for this.
I obviously find it ridiculous, especially the jail time part, but l'm kinda scared if I get sued by a whole agency. I don't really know if they pay attention to this kind of situation, but still.
And if it happens, what could be the best defense for me?
Thank you.
D

I would have thought, unless you yourself are famous and likely to have influence, the agency will ignore it, or at most send you a nasty letter.

If they were to sue you (assuming you are not very rich!) or try to get you sent to jail, surely the bad publicity would cause more suspicion to fall on the actor that he was guilty after all - and the agency are probably hoping that the rape accusation will be forgotten rather than being dragged back into the spotlight?

Yes, you can be sued for libel if you say someone is a rapist if you can’t prove that it’s true. You won’t get jail time but you could be ordered to pay him a lot of money.

Have you deleted the tweets? Start there…

Have you deleted the tweets? Start there…
If you have not deleted them do so, but keep a secure copy of them so you can show exactly what you wrote.

The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is yes, but how it would work and what defenses you'd have depend on what country you're in, what exactly you said and how many people saw it.

Based on your post - If you did this in the UK for example, it would absolutely be a libelous statement and the victim would almost certainly be successful in proving that against you in court.

When it comes to calculating damages, it's extremely complicated. In your case, assuming you tweeted from an account with 100 followers and the tweet got 1000 impressions, you'd have caused a lot less reputational harm than if your account had 1m followers and the tweet was seen 30m times.

Libel cases can be extremely expensive. Injured parties - particularly where the perpetrator is not a person of means - will often start the process with an offer to settle the matter out of court. That settlement might include, for example, a small token payment of £1000, removing the tweet in question, an apology in the same format (a tweet admitting that you knew the claims were false) and an undertaking not to repeat the claims.

That might seem a lot, but fighting a libel case and losing could cost you to the tune of tens, or hundreds of thousands depending on the severity.

In the UK, the majority of people have access to three defences for libel: Truth, Honest Opinion, Publication on a Matter of Public Interest. I'm not sure how any of these would apply to you; you admit that the claims you made were false and - presuming you have no real life connection to this person - that you made them purely to engage in malicious gossip.

What no one has mentioned is that this kind of court case is civil not criminal and very expensive for the person doing the sueing,,,they would need to be Elton John rich to afford it. Assuming you aren't rich, all they would get from you is a public retraction and so on as per @Velmy 's post and even if costs were awarded against you, they'd not get them as you aren't rich, just silly. Quite a few years ago now someone really nasty threatened to sue us. At the time we had legal protection insurance via DH's job, so we thought it was worth taking advice and this is pretty much what we were told.

Sort of! Without knowing what this person threatened to sue you for it's tough to say, but lots of people 'threaten' to sue with no real intention of doing so and it can be scary (especially if they do it via a legal firm), irrespective of it being an empty threat. So you were right to take advice, and the advice you got may have been good...or it may not.

Liable is an especially tricky one...you certainly don't need to be 'Elton John rich' (which is a term I'm definitely stealing!) to see it through. We've all seen the big celebrity cases that make the news, but I've known tiny businesses successfully sue for libel over lost custom/reputational damage.

The UK legal system is incredibly favourable to those bringing cases of libel/slander. One of the most favorable in the world. For example, if you're in court accused of stealing my car, you don't have to prove that you didn't steal it...the prosecution must prove that you did. Now with libel, if I take you to court accusing you of making a defamatory tweet about me, it's up to you to prove that your tweet wasn't defamatory, with a limited number of defences available.

When you factor in the costs involved in defending a case that goes all the way, you can see why so many people are advised that settling is often the better option (especially if you're bang to rights like OP seems to be).

As for the "they wouldn't get anything if you aren't rich" argument - big disagree here. If that was the case, poor people would have carte blanche to libel others. If someone has the resources to take you to court for libel, assume they have the resources to pursue you for the money if they win.

Attachment to earnings, funds from the sale of property, bailiffs...all these options are open. Being forced into bankruptcy is no fun!

More to the point, the stress of any/all of the above for most people can be life changing. I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they could get away with libel because it's expensive to bring or that they aren't Elton John rich!

OP, it really isn’t ‘obviously ridiculous’ and your OP is full of implications that you think it is ok to sling accusations around. In legal terms Evidence is evidence, not “evidence”. He is innocent until proven guilty, not “innocent”.
We know lots of people get away with things when they are guilty but maybe you should delete your X account if you don’t get the importance of not slinging damaging gossip around.

But I hope this goes no further, for your sake.

It depends what you said as to if it is defamation or not. Delete the comment online (but keep a copy) and try to avoid similar comments in future.

never mind the "try to avoid" just bloody don't do it!

According to OP, her tweets stated that the actor raped the woman in question. That is clearly defamatory and, unless she can prove it is true, she could be sued for libel. She would have been on safer ground if she had said that the actor had been arrested for raping the woman, especially if she also said that charges had been dropped.

Actually I don't think this post quite says that "2 days ago on my Twitter, I (possibly) spread misinformation about a south Asian actor.
This actor was accused of rape, but the charges were dropped for "lack of evidence" "

The misinformation spread might have said - XYZ report said ABC - unless we know the precise words (which I certainly do not recommend however are posted here) it could have hard to assess if it were defamatory, even if I were a defamation lawyer. She also says possibly and she does not say if she was the one accusing him of rape.

Did you miss the bit where she said his fans " screened all of my tweets where i said that he raped that woman"? That seems pretty clear to me. Yes, if that isn't what she said it may not be defamation. However, if she did indeed say that the actor raped someone, that is clearly defamatory.

“His fans jumped on me, screened all of my tweets where i said that he raped that woman”

IANAL, but that looks clear to me.

I think the ‘possibly’ refers to the fact that she doesn’t accept that what she posted is misinformation. Taken in the context of the quote marks round evidence and innocent.

So much bollocks being talked on this thread.

He could sue you for libel if he could be arsed. But he'd have to prove reputational damage and/or financial loss as a direct result of your tweet. I don't imagine the success of his future career lives or dies by one random mumsnetter's social media post.

Also, it wouldn't be worth him suing you because presumably you have no money to pay damages even in the unlikely event he were to prove his case.

I hate twitter for precisely this reason. Perhaps the OP will think before spreading rumours again!