In Britain international criminal lord could sue Interpol for libel and win.
I think that only sensible way to deal with the libel is to allow it. It's already that way in reality. If someone spreads a rumour about someone else to hurt his reputation the source of gossip is impossible to track and impact can be devastating despite all the clarifications and court judgements. Explicitly allowing for libel could do the same to impact of false claims that possibility of posting anything on the internet did to perceived credibility of any unverified information.
Those laws might be fine when small amount of influential people could effectively disseminate information but in the viral age of today, when false information written on someones anonymous blog can sweep across information agencies all over the world the libel laws effectively serve only trolls and powerful organization to fight journalists.
I think that only sensible way to deal with the libel is to allow it. It's already that way in reality. If someone spreads a rumour about someone else to hurt his reputation the source of gossip is impossible to track and impact can be devastating despite all the clarifications and court judgements. Explicitly allowing for libel could do the same to impact of false claims that possibility of posting anything on the internet did to perceived credibility of any unverified information.
Those laws might be fine when small amount of influential people could effectively disseminate information but in the viral age of today, when false information written on someones anonymous blog can sweep across information agencies all over the world the libel laws effectively serve only trolls and powerful organization to fight journalists.