Libel on Web 2.0

Some kids at a suburban high school are unhappy with a teacher. Before the Internet, they might have pass rumors around the school (which might constitute slander), but now they have tools like MySpace to libel their teacher.

But the question remains of how well they are able to make the distinction that these are two greatly different acts under the law. If they (kids, or adults for that matter) don’t know enough of the law to make this distinction, how are we to protect individual reputations online? Public education about this and other media laws may be costly and ineffective. Technological limitations like filtering may be able to play an important role, but may impact online speech (through over-filtering).

Perhaps the larger question here is to what degree we can make our already evolved media laws like libel apply online to individual publishers. Could revision of the law for the online environment solve some of these problems?  As more and more conversation takes place online, these issues will require some sort of resolution.