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Toronto media and defamation lawyer Howard Winkler discussed various forms of defamation in posts throughout 2021.
In February, he applauded a decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia holding online social media platforms responsible for the defamatory content they publish as a step toward. The court gave a Vancouver businessman permission to sue Twitter in a B.C. courtroom for tweets tying him to unproven conspiracy theories involving pedophile rings and Bill and Hillary Clinton. “I receive many calls a week from people who are the subject of fake reviews or false comments on social media platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter,” says Winkler, principal and founder of Winkler Law. Day of reckoning draws closer for social media platforms
He shifted his focus to south of the border in April, commenting on the efforts of a former Donald Trump lawyer to have a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit against her dismissed. She had blamed voting machines for stealing the 2020 election from Trump, and the makers of those machines responded with a lawsuit. Winkler told LegalMattersCanada.ca that “the real battle is going to be whether [she] can ground her opinions on underlying facts which can be proven to be true; and the issue of malice, which gets into a question of her state of mind.” Trump ex-lawyer’s defamation defense may not be so ridiculous
In July, he said it was reasonable to expect Google to make a greater effort to remove fake and defamatory online reviews about people and businesses from its search engine. Google must do more to combat defamatory online reviews
Closing Google’s ‘gateway to harm’
Google was again Winkler’s focus in August when he commented on a judgment of the Federal Court, which relates to a man’s claim that news articles displayed in its search results contain inaccurate information that disclose sensitive information. “Right now, Google is at the far extreme of freedom of expression, without any respect or regard for the protection of reputation,” he wrote. “That is why I describe Google as being the gateway to harm.” Court ruling a small step in closing Google’s ’gateway to harm’
In October, Winkler praised an Australian court for a decision that makes online publishers responsible for third-party comments that are defamatory. “The real question is, ‘Why is the rest of the world not following Australia’s lead?’” he mused. Australia is winning the battle against Google and Facebook
Winkler returned to the Australia-versus-Facebook battle in December, writing that while proposed legislation to make online platforms responsible for policing defamatory material on their sites in that country is rather draconian, he suspects it will lead to a reasonably balanced compromise that the rest of the world will want to emulate. Australia proves that Google and Facebook can be tamed
