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The legal implications of defamatory statements on social media platforms in South Africa / Leonhard Hugo Homann

With the fast pace that technology is currently developing, technology forms a bigger
part of our day to day lives. Technological advancement has an impact on all aspects of
life, including how we communicate with one another. This has caused an increase in
social media usage. South Africa is in no way an exception to this growing trend. The
escalation of the use of social media platforms has brought with it the rise in the
wrongful use of social media. The growth in wrongful use would lead to the proliferation
of legal consequences for defamatory statements with regard to social media situations.
The question arises if South Africa‘s current legislation is able to regulate the new
phenomena of defamatory statements on social media platforms. The conclusion was
reached that South Africa‘s current legislation is more than adequate to regulate this
new form of defamation. With the qualification that that judges apply the current legal
principles of the law of delict to this new form of defamation correctly. Educating and
informing judges, as well as the public is vital in preventing this new form of defamation
to become problematic. / LLM, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/15290
Date January 2015
CreatorsHomann, Leonhard Hugo
Source SetsNorth-West University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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