Everyone experiences poor or sub-standard service from businesses or service providers at some point in their life. The aforesaid can occur due to a multitude of reasons, many of which make perfect sense under the circumstances. On the other hand some excuses are ludicrous, nonsensical and rightfully further enrages the consumer. It has become a trend for consumers to take their grievances to websites like hellopeter but recently an even more unsettling trend started emerging where consumers start posting slanderous, vexatious and offensive statements on public, unregulated social media pages.
These postings are more often than not justified by the consumer who feels they have a right to freedom of speech, whilst there is a fundamental lack of understanding of the true meaning and interpretation of this right. The purpose of this article is however not to delve into freedom of speech and that topic will be addressed in a later article.
The truth of the matter is that although every person enjoys the right to freedom of speech, rights such as the right to protection against false, demeaning, slanderous, vexatious and offensive statements or comments of whatever nature also exist. Every right has a responsibility associated therewith which is more often than not blatantly ignored.
Slander or defamation can be defined as the unlawful and intentional publication of matter concerning another which tends to injure his or her reputation. Therefore whether the act of slander is performed verbally, telephonically, by e-mail or social media it still falls under the definition. Before any consideration is given to posting on social media, the poster should first attempt to address the issue with the other partly directly and attempt to resolve the matter. Should the aforesaid not be possible there are various other platforms to address such issues which includes escalating the matter to management, escalating the matter to a regulatory body or ombudsman and in certain instances, the consumer council.
By posting unverified statements on social media irrevocable harm can be caused to the other party, whether a individual or business. The receiving party, under circumstances where the posting was factually incorrect, is entitled to institute a civil action against the poster for damages based on defamation. The quantum of these claims can escalate to staggering amounts and will be determined by various factors including but not limited to the amount of people reached, the nature of the comments made and the actual losses suffered as a consequence of the act of defamationn. One major factor to be taken into consideration is the wide reach of social media platform and the veld fire like spreading of postings.
In conclusion we are of the view that consumers should refrain from such postings and if they do revert to such a posting, it should only be made after all facts have been verified as correct and every other avenue has been excussed. On the other hand we encourage the victims of unjustified postings to seek legal advice as the damage caused to one’s reputation can be immense and the only way to stop further damage is by taking swift and decisive action.