Are Our Words Interpreted Differently By Social Media Users? UK Supreme Court Issues Judgment

On 3 April 2019, the UK Supreme Court held that comments made by a wife in a Facebook post that her former husband had “tried to strangle” her were not defamatory. The case is of particular importance given the reaffirmation* by the UK Supreme Court of the correct approach to interpreting potentially defamatory statements. Judgments of the UK courts can be of persuasive authority in Ireland:

The UK Supreme Court found that the meaning of an alleged defamatory statement should be determined in accordance with the ordinary reader's interpretation, rather than the dictionary definition of the words used, which can be “divorced” from the context in which the statement was made. The Supreme Court emphasised the requirement to consider the context in which the alleged defamatory comments were made. Here, the alleged defamatory statement was made on Facebook, which the Court described as a “casual medium”, where the reaction to any post by the ordinary social media user is “impressionistic and fleeting”. As a result, the judgment may act as a significant touchstone for defamation claims brought on foot of a statement published on a social media platform. Facts

Mr Stocker issued a claim for defamation on the basis that the words “he tried to strangle me”, published on Facebook by his former wife, Mrs Stocker, meant that he had attempted to kill Mrs Stocker.

In the UK High Court, the trial judge accepted this meaning of the words and found in favour of Mr Stocker. In reaching his decision, the judge referred to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of “strangle” and distinguished between the term “he strangled me”, which could be interpreted to mean Mr Stocker painfully constricted Mrs Stocker's throat with his hand, and “he tried to strangle me” which could only be read as an attempt to kill.

The UK Court of Appeal upheld the High Court decision, noting that whilst the use of dictionary definitions does not form part of the process of determining the natural and ordinary meaning of words, no harm was done as the Judge had merely used the dictionary definitions as a check and no more.

Judgment

The UK Supreme Court unanimously upheld Mrs Stocker's appeal, finding that the trial judge had erred in law by over-relying on the dictionary definitions and failing to give proper account to the context in which the statement was written.

The Supreme Court highlighted in particular thedanger of using dictionary definitions to provide a guide to the meaning...