this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2026
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Not if it's only to you. Defamation happens when an accusation is published such that it could damage your reputation.
True. If nobody else is told about it it's not Libel.
So they would have to stop that person not in public or very very discretely, only one person could be involved from their side (otherwise somebody would be telling somebody else) and the person stopped could simply refuse and walk away because if they called the authorities by telling them that person had stolen something, it would be Libel (or worse - I believe it's also a crime to falsely report a crime).
Ultimately, it boils down to had they witnessed it or not - had they seen it on camera then they did, had they just blindly relied on the AI flagging it without actually checking it, then they did not, and "the AI told us so" wouldn't fly in Court if they didn't cross-checked the AI system and it turned out they had made an accusation of a Crime against somebody to somebody else or the authorities without actually checking it.
It would not. I resent that. Libel is written. In speech, it's slander.
Yeah, English is not my first language and I kept feeling there was another word in English for the spoken form only, same as in my own language, but couldn't remember it.
So cheers for that!
Oh sorry. In case you didn't pick up on it, I was making a reference. Not supposed to be taken too seriously! (Though it was technically accurate.)
Anyway, in reality in the modern world, there's usually no difference. The general term for both print and spoken, and the term used in most English-language legal systems today, is defamation.
Well, in my own language - Portuguese - libel and slander are definitelly distinct legal terms.