Wikipedia talk:Libel

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Defamation that is true?

Our article on defamation notes that, "In several countries, including South Korea, a true statement can also be considered defamation." However, Wikipedia should not remove such "defamation" if it is true, verifiable, and in conformity with the BLP policy. (t · c) buidhe 12:33, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Policy document?

I emailed WMF legal for advice on this article and they suggested that this actually was not a policy document 'strictly speaking' and hoped that might be addressed in a future edit. Any thoughts on how to address that? Superb Owl (talk) 15:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with that. The answer, as of the current version, would be to change the 'legal policy' description at the top to remove the reference to the Wikimedia Foundation. Personally, I'd removed the whole 'text=' sentence. I'll not do that today, but allow some time for responses. Some context: the content was added in Special:Diff/277929695 by User:Ipatrol, citing WP:OA in the edit summary. Foundation policies are listed at foundation:Category:Policies. Office Actions are indeed covered by Foundation policies (there's also a resolution about BLPs), however this policy does not form part of Office policies. That's not to say Jimmy or the Foundation wouldn't agree with the policy, but it's not part of their official policies. 'strictly speaking'. Side note: this policy predates both the Wikimedia Foundation and Jimmy's famous comment about aggressively removing content. ​ -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:20, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

cc @ZLEA Cinaroot (talk) 08:41, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit confused as to what not a policy document 'strictly speaking' is supposed to mean. - ZLEA ^TǀC 16:02, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF has official policies; foundation:Policy:Main. This page is not one of them. That's how I interpret 'strictly speaking'. Referring to my comment above, I since removed the suggestion that it was one of their policies. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:09, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just now seeing that this discussion ended in February before I was pinged here. Cinaroot, what was your reason for pinging me? This page is still policy with legal considerations, even if not WMF policy. - ZLEA ^TǀC 16:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I might have misunderstood the conversation. From what I understand, Wikipedia takes defamatory statements very seriously in Biographies of living people (BLPs), but outside of that, things can feel more like a grey area. It’s often difficult to judge what counts as defamatory, especially since free speech protections come into play and if articles are sourced with reliable sources. Cinaroot (talk) 01:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Libel against companies may be a gray area from a BLP policy perspective, but US libel laws apply to defamation against both individual people and companies. Simply put, if something is a gray area in Wikipedia policy but not US law, then we should not consider it a gray area. - ZLEA ^TǀC 01:59, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoice on companies involved (but not convicted) in genocide

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Result: The answer to this question is not subject to consensus.

The boundaries of libel and defamation are questions of law, and are not subject to consensus. English Wikipedia can make policies that go further than the law, but Wikipedia:Libel does not do so. WP:BLPGROUP explicitly states the Biographies of Living Persons policy does not apply to companies (especially big ones). The question of whether or not make policies that go beyond the law was not what was asked in this RFC.

I am not a lawyer, and the WMF legal staff can answer questions more authoritatively, but here are some points to consider about the boundaries of the law:

• Some jurisdictions prohibit defamation lawsuits by some or all companies. US jurisdictions do permit such lawsuits; for example the successful Delaware suit Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network. Wikipedia:Libel does not say which jurisdictions define "defamation" for Wikipedia purposes. This would be a helpful clarification.
• Individual Wikipedia contributors can be sued, not just the Wikimedia Foundation, if they can be identified. The WMF, employees, or volunteers may be compelled by force to share records that identify them, depending on the jurisdiction.
• Libel laws vary considerably by jurisdiction; the laws in your home jurisdiction are particularly relevant to your personal legal exposure.
• Lawsuits can be filed based on what is written on a talk page, not merely what appears in articles, since they are public.
• Some jurisdictions have extreme laws (often criminal rather than civil) that prohibit criticism of certain parties, regardless of whether or not the criticism is true. I assume Wikipedia:Libel is not intended to remove material that violates these laws, but they do have implications for the safety of individual contributors. (And of course some jurisdictions simply do not have strong rule of law.)

In countries that have laws similar to the United States:

• This kind of accusation deserves the highest level of attention to detail, because it is more likely to generate attention and outrage by accused parties, more likely to actually damage a company's reputation, and more likely to result in damages if misstated. According to defamation, falsely accusing someone of committing a crime (such as genocide) is often considered defamation per se, and the plaintiff does not need to prove injury to reputation to get damages, merely that the false accusation was made.
• Opinions are not libel, only claims of fact. (But Wikipedia is not in the business of publishing unattributed opinions.)
• Truth is always a defense against libel.
  • Not using wikivoice and describing exactly what sources say guarantees truth. "X said Y" is demonstrably true if it can be verified in a cited source, even if Y is libel.
  • Different thresholds for meeting burden of proof apply depending on the jurisdiction and the plaintiff (for example if they are a public figure vs. private person).
  • If Wikipedia and its contributors are going to use wikivoice to assert a company aided and abetted genocide, if it wants to avoid legal liability it would have to be pretty darn sure that the claim is true. Defamation#Defences points out that "mistake of fact" is sometimes a valid defense, if a writer believed in good faith in the truth of an assertion they repeated. However, there is also available the counterargument that the writer knew or should have known that the printed assertion was false. Our article points out that newspapers are often considered to have a stronger duty to fact-check accusations before publication than does a private person (who might reasonably rely on a single newspaper article). Wikipedia is more like a newspaper than a person, and so we would be expected to do extensive fact-checking against multiple highly reliable sources and be aware if there is a substantial debate in public or in sources about the truth of an assertion (which could attach liability for repeating something questionable). Reliance on a documented conviction in a court that follows the rule of law is highly likely to withstand scrutiny. To take a concrete example of what not to do: relying on what Fox News said about Dominion Voting Systems and ignoring published reports in other reliable sources that implied Fox was committing libel would open Wikipedia up to substantial liability.
  • The doctrine of substantial truth may result in small errors in fact being forgiven, but this varies by jurisdiction, so going beyond exactly what sources say creates legal risk. If a source says that a company supplied weapons during a genocide, it would be risky to then write that the company supplied weapons that were used in a genocide. "Supplying military aid" is not exactly factually the same as "facilitating genocide", even if many people are of the opinion that it is a moral equivalent. Saying Israel used supplies made by a company is not the same as saying the company supplied Israel; the latter potentially implies that the manufacturer did so directly and knowingly.

-- Beland (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

---

Does WP:LIBEL prevent alleging involvement in Wikivoice of companies that are documented (by WP:RS and WP:V sources), but not convicted of, facilitating a genocide? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 10:37, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

- Added an RfC because we have not received any contributions to this discussion in over two weeks and could use more opinions. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 10:37, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all. On my talk page, there was a discussion about the role of WP:LIBEL related to genocide allegations in Wikivoice against companies not convicted of genocide, which then went to another place, and it was finally decided the discussion be moved here.

For context, per Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 12#RfC on first sentence we can refer to the Gaza genocide as "the" genocide in other articles assuming WP:LIBEL does not apply.

An example case: in the World Central Kitchen aid convoy attack, the drone used was produced by Elbit Systems according to WP:V and WP:RS sources. Can we say Elbit Systems provided a drone used in the Gaza genocide? Alternatively, can we say Elbit Systems provided a drones used during the Gaza genocide? Or can we not in any way imply genocide involvement?

Does WP:LIBEL prevent alleging involvement in Wikivoice of companies that are documented (by WP:RS and WP:V sources), but not convicted of, facilitating a genocide?

1. We cannot in any way imply a company is connected with the Gaza genocide if they have not been convicted.
2. We can say a company provided military aid during the Gaza genocide if documented, but cannot go any further than this.
3. We can imply a company provided military aid facilitating the Gaza genocide if sufficient external sources explicitly make this connection.
4. We can imply a company provided military aid facilitating the Gaza genocide if they are documented providing military aid during the genocide.

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 09:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: For context, this issue arose when Alexandraaaacs1989 added “and genocide” to List of companies involved in the Gaza war, which is outside the scope of the list and obviously a huge libel problem as many of the sources only discuss the companies’ involvement in the war. Involvement in genocide is a very serious accusation to make, and one that we must avoid to the extent required by US defamation laws (as the WMF’s servers are located in the US) as it places both the WMF and potentially individual editors in danger of legal action (not a legal threat per WP:NOTLEGAL). - ZLEA ^TǀC 17:12, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well for full context, it said "supplying arms to Israel during the Gaza war and genocide." Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 00:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reworded the question to be A/B/C vote form, I assume you vote A but don't want to change this for you just in case, so I encourage you to reword your comment accordingly to cast your vote for A. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: This is a good place to have this discussion, but it only started two or three days ago and until you have exhausted all roads to achieve consensus about the topic, an Rfc is very premature (and very costly in terms of editor time); see WP:RFCBEFORE. I have removed the Rfc header for now; please continue to discuss. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:41, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we get sufficient comments on this talk page in the short term it's fine you removed the RfC, but if we make little progress in the next few days in terms of gaining feedback from additional editors, I will re-add the RfC. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 00:42, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would hope you would try the approaches listed in the bullet points at WP:RFCBEFORE before you do. Notifying WikiProjects is a great start; so is notifying previous discussants in earlier versions of the conversation. If it does come to starting another Rfc, please respect the process and read up on how to write a brief, neutral statement for the Rfc question that appears at the top. Great questions are ones that are phrased as a yes/no question, or have a very few enumerated options, like a multiple-choice test question: "Choose from A, B, or C." Open-ended questions, such as "What are some interpretations of XYZ topic..." tend to be not so good and are less likely to lead to a solution. See the Good questions–Bad questions sidebar at WP:RFCBRIEF. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 06:44, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reworded it to be A/B/C question format and notified Talk:Gaza genocide, thanks for the suggestions. Feel free to cast a vote accordingly! Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:08, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Vote (D), secondary (C), tertiary (B), because if it is a fact documented by reliable sources that a company is supplying weapons used in "the" genocide (per Wikivoice), then we should report these facts directly. WP:LIBEL in my view is not applicable because we are basing our statements on external sources, and thus we are not the ones alleging genocidal involvement—others are, and we are simply noting what they said based on well-established Wiki policy. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Any company that is not actively trying to discourage the usage of its products and/or services could be considered as a facilitator for the Gaza genocide. If the said company products and/or services are being used to promote, instigate, facilitate and engage in the Gaza conflict, they are simply involved in the Gaza genocide. Indirect support constitute a form of aiding and abetting or complicity. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 07:47, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is not up to Wikipedia to decide. If a court of law rules that a company is indeed facilitating a genocide, then we can say that here. Otherwise it would be libel to make that claim in wikivoice. - ZLEA ^TǀC 15:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• While I consider this, I would like to thank Mathglot and that it was not pushed against. A general discussion can solve problems just as easily as an RFC. Many editors use this to begin a discussion, not necessarily a bad thing, but many times, premature or unnecessary. I may need some clarification: The opening sentence mentions "allegations in Wikivoice". Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Explanation states, Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that genocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil. Bold added for emphasis -- Otr500 (talk) 13:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There's a conflation here between opinions and facts. If a company is providing arms to Israel that it is using during its genocide, then it is a fact that the company is facilitating genocide—end of story. The only question is how, or whether at all, to allege this fact in Wikivoice due to WP:LIBEL concerns. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If you are an author or analyst writing about Gaza for a book or journal, that is certainly an argument you could make and publish. And you can make it here, on the Talk page. But there are restrictions to what we can add to an article, as Wikipedia editors merely report what independent, reliable, secondary sources say; we don't draw conclusions based on the logic of a situation. In particular, you can add that assertion to an article either: a) if it is backed by WP:RSOPINION and you provide WP:INTEXT attribution (i.e., you name a particular author in the body whose opinion it is and cite it; e.g.; "John Doe said that Acme Co.is facilitating genocide"^[37]), or, b) in Wikipedia's voice, if it is the verifiable view of the majority of reliable sources who have written about it, along with inline citations but without requiring WP:INTEXT attribution. It is always possible to cherry pick a few sources on one side or the other of a contentious issue like this one, but What do most reliable sources say on this point, is their a clear majority view in one direction, or is opinion divided? Mathglot (talk) 14:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for explaining in a kind and patient way. I'm on my phone as I write this so please excuse my absence of hyperlink use/formatting in my reply. I would like to preface my next paragraph by saying I read and understand the entirety of your reply.

  But... I think it's important to note there are cases other than the two you mentioned (a: opinion attributed, or b: cited source for claim). This third kind (we'll call c) of case is where there are implications embedded in how a sentence is worded in Wikivoice when the sentence's primary purpose is to make a different claim. For example, "the Gaza genocide is" is supported by Wikivoice without inline citations, even though these four words imply the statement "there is a genocide in Gaza". This is an important distinction, and this third category is the type of claim I am focusing on by raising this issue. Not sentences saying "Elbit Systems facilitated genocide by giving weapons to Israel." What I'm realizing I should have made clearer is how I'm focusing on more ambiguous cases, such as putting Elbit Systems in a template category called "companies supporting the genocide" e.g. in the Gaza genocide navigational template I created; such as saying "Elbit Systems has shipped arms to Israel during the Gaza war and genocide" (partially implying in Wikivoice involvement in genocide without citations due to summary of sources, vis WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY); saying in an article overview of companies involved in the genocide something like "multiple companies have provided military aid to Israel during the genocide, including companies X, Y, and Z" (or possibly stronger wording as needed in Wikivoice if vote option d is supported), etc.

  Have I better explained where I'm coming from? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 15:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I believe the actual issue here is whether such claims, even if well sourced, are libel if made in wikivoice. - ZLEA ^TǀC 15:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes this too Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 15:36, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Well-sourced is not enough for Wikivoice; it would have to be the clear majority view. If there is doubt on that point (not among Wikipedia editors, but among the sources) then the safe solution is in-text attribution. You could even do a kind of hybrid: let's say some neutral media watchdog think tanks have actually evaluated this very question and wrote about it; then you could make a quotation about what the majority view is as an in text attribution to the think tanks. E.g., "The independent media analyst group SmartFolks Corp. wrote in its 32 Octember report that 'The majority of independent sources believe that Acme facilitated genocide', however Genius Inc. found that that was 'the view among a minority of reliable sources' ". That way, you have simply made an attributed quotation, and the libel question goes away. Mathglot (talk) 16:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I appreciate your contributions to the discussion, but I feel like you haven't interacted in your responses to the more ambiguous cases relating to WP:LIBEL. Can you please react to specific voting cases above I created? Namely, it's not clear whether "Elbit Systems provided arms to Israel during the Gaza war and genocide" is permitted, as this was the sentence that started this original dispute. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 02:02, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Vote (D) or (C). However, we have to word things very carefully and matter-of-fact so Wikipedia as a whole is not sued out of business by these extremely powerful companies. Listing well-documented military support is fine, but we cannot explicitly write "Google's leaders are enthusiastic genocide-enablers" or similar. David A (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• (invited by the bot) There's a conflict within the RFC. The explicit question is whether it is prohibited specifically by Wikipedia:Libel but the implicit question is whether it should be allowed in or left out. IMO it should be left out for several reasons. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:36, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Could you please explain your reasoning? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I !vote for C. I respect the logic of D, but it does raise some possible WP:OR concerns. A and B would be unnecessarily restrictive in my view; I think we can go as far as C with appropriate language and attribution. WillowCity^(talk) 14:55, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Vote (D) or (C) but would like the statement to be more specific than "military aid". There's a difference between clothing for soldiers and providing weapons and both are "military aid". The statement should be as specific as sources allow. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 21:06, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• The standard of sourcing for (b) is easily met - it simply requires the presence of a reliable source; (c) is correct too but leaves open the question of what “sufficient external sources” means - in my view it would have to be the majority of independent RSs, not just the presence of a single source; (d) would be synth: it’s saying we can go beyond the sources because we know better.

Note: I think the same rules apply here to countries as well as companies, I.e to how we describe the complicity of countries such as the UK, eg in info boxes. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:33, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't think LIBEL is going to be the primary concern for whether or not an article mentions ties to a genocide. I'd expect it'll mostly come down to WP:V/WP:RS/WP:OR and especially WP:NPOV concerns. From a purely LIBEL perspective, I'd say C, with the caveat that "imply" should be "say". If there isn't a source explicitly connecting a company to a genocide, we should not say there is such a connection, and we should never just "imply" such a connection. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:07, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• C: (Summoned by bot): Per Firefangledfeathers, we can not imply, surmise, or make conjectures if the source isn't "explicitly connecting a company to genocide". While there are some sources that want to claim anything Israel uses from a company contributes to "an economy of genocide". That needs to be weighed carefully to ensure a NPOV. This is policy and a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. Example: "Amnesty is also calling for a stop of trade with and investment in companies based anywhere around the world that are contributing to Israel’s genocide, apartheid or unlawful occupation." Some critical observations can be found (See: Criticism of Amnesty International). Israel bought several million dollars in ink pens from several companies in several different countries. Amnesty International has determined that Israel is committing genocide. The organization has held that any company providing supplies to the state is complicit in genocide. Named were Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, among others. Hyundai was also named. The company reported that the equipment in question was used, and they had no control over the equipment when resold. Israel does participate in auctions for material and supplies. There are export control laws that companies must abide by. If they are following the letter of the law, then careful consideration needs to be used before making accusations, even if sourced. -- Otr500 (talk) 00:42, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Have no policy on this, and evaluate on a case-by-case basis. (No change. Status quo.) I think our existing policies such as WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, etc. basically cover this without needing to craft a genocide-specific libel policy. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:48, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Definition, part 2

I agree with the talk page section #Definition above. This policy says that libel and defamation should be deleted immediately, but fails to define what libel and defamation are, leaving the reader to wonder exactly what should be deleted. And I don't think reading the Wikipedia articles on libel and defamation provides a definition that is tailored enough to Wikipedia. Those articles state...

Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are false, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation such as dignity and honour.

That doesn't really tell me what we should be deleting on Wikipedia. There are lots of things that we publish that could injure a third party's reputation and be illegal in some authoritarian country somewhere. I suggest we should add a sentence or paragraph to this policy defining libel/defamation, and tailor this definition to Wikipedia. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:46, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Defamation

This request for help from administrators has been answered. If you need more help or have additional questions, please reapply the {{admin help}} template, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their own user talk page.

Is this article accurate? I, like others above / in the past, am confused on how correct this policy seems to be. Clearly Wikipedia has a large amount of negative content on many people and companies; but this article doesn't clarify that 'false' is required.

More specifically, it says

It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are false

And even more pertinently

It is a Wikipedia policy to immediately delete libelous material when it has been identified. Page revisions containing libelous content should also be removed from the page history. Libelous material (otherwise known as defamation) is reasonably likely to damage a person or company's reputation and could expose Wikipedia to legal consequences.

I originally looked this up to double check before reverting this edit on a living person, as the edit summary was 'Removed defamatory content'. Going by the source, the content in question does seem to be verifiable at the very least, but it still does count as defamatory (to my understanding).

As much as I would love to be bold, I'm fairly confident I'm not competent enough to revise this or subsequent articles (especially since there are legal ramifications).

Please advise, thanks. MSWS (talk) 14:09, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@MSWS: (This should have been a plain "help me" question, not an admin help question, because being a Wikipedia administrator does not give one any more understanding of this than any other editor.) I'm not at all sure what you are asking. To start with, what page are you referring to? Your first quote seems to be from the article Defamation, but your second one from the policy page Wikipedia:Libel. If you are asking whether the article is accurate, then your question should be on that article's talk page, not here. Either way, can you clarify what the inaccuracy is that you suspect? The article shouldn't make a general statement that 'false' is required, because, as explained in that article, in some jurisdictions it isn't. As for the policy stating that 'false' is required, I can't see that restricting it to false statements would be helpful, in view of what I have just said about the law in some jurisdictions; doing so would mean that we had a policy effectively saying that editors can break laws in some countries. (Incidentally, the policy on content about living persons makes it perfectly clear that it is not necessary for statements to be false in order for them to be unacceptable.) JBW (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @JBW:^[a], thanks for responding. Apologies for the poor writing, I was very sleep deprived when writing that question.

After re-reading my query and the relevant articles, my understanding now is most libel that Wikipedia is referring to would already fall under the No Original Research policy; documenting things that others have said (where relevant, notable, etc.) seems to be fine. In other words, documenting someone else's libelous statements (regardless of our definition) should be fine?^[b]

P.S. sorry for the bizarre formatting, ran into issues with collapsing text.

1. is pinging necessary in most (and/or this) instances?
2. Does this not still technically count as libelous content?

Original Question

My question relates to both pages; this page (i.e. Libel) states: It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that the material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory. And by the definition that Wikipedia offers (and indeed, the one the article links to): Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are false, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation such as dignity and honour. — Original Confusion This is further reinforced by the subsequent sentence on the Libel (policy) page: It is a Wikipedia policy to immediately delete libelous material when it has been identified. Thus. the core question is how is Wikipedia able to retain negative information regarding people (living or otherwise) despite much of this information being what would be considered defamatory. Regardless of if a claim is true/false, verified/unverified, it still would be defamatory, would it not? By this definition would covering a After closer reading, the and causes a legally redressable injury seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Who's definition of libel are we going off of? A glance at the United States defamation law suggests that it requires the outlet to know the information was wholly and patently false or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not ; presumably Wikipedia has this interpretation? Or is this more of a you'll know it when you see it kinda thing? |} MSWS (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]