From what I’ve heard, Britain has very strong libel and slander laws – much stronger ones than in North America. If that is the case (Please let me know if it isn’t) than why do british tabloids seems so much worse about publishing blatantly false and defamatory things about british public figures?
It certainly still happens in North America, especially online, but looking at a magazine rack, the ones where you look at them a think “yeah, that’s absolutely fake” are always british, and I don’t get how that is when their laws are stronger
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> From what I’ve heard, Britain has very strong libel and slander laws – much stronger ones than in North America.
I think this is sometimes overstated. They’re different in a number of ways, and it’s generally thought that it’s easier to win a libel claim in the UK than in the US, but the difference isn’t really that huge. A high-profile counterexample is Johnny Depp – he lost his libel case against Amber Heard in the UK, but won a very similar one in the US (though I think that’s pending appeal). If you do win, I think the damages generally tend to be lower in the UK than the US.
It is pretty common for British newspapers to lose libel cases, but for the most part they’re careful to only publish claims that are low risk. Either they’re confident that the story is true, or they word it carefully to make a libel claim difficult, or it’s about something embarrassing that the subject wouldn’t want to kick up a fuss about, or they’re confident that the subject wants the attention, or they’re confident that the subject is too poor and vulnerable to go after them.
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