According to Gawker there's been a bit of a barney in the US this week, between 'media futurist' Jeff Jarvis, and a satirical knock off @ProfJeffJarvis. It went like this.
Esquire magazine published an article by "Prof. Jeff Jarvis", although the biography stated that it was not the real Jarvis. The photo showed a fat man in beer helmet. The article itself was pretty obviously a joke, advocating the creation of an Innovation Party, in which (among other things):
"Netizens will be co-opted to both fly drones over Pakistan, East Africa, and other trouble spots, and also to make the difficult call: Does this house really look like it is harboring terrorists? And should we deploy a Hellfire missile at the house or not? Cast your votes!"
The real Jarvis, although a firm advocate of free speech, flipped out and said it was defamatory. Ultimately Esquire pulled the article.
This all begs the question, can satire be defamatory? The answer is yes. Satire can definitely be defamatory. And here is why.
First, the satire might not be obvious enough to avoid the literal imputation. In this case, the literal imputation would be that Jarvis holds those opinions. We reckon that wouldn't arise. But there might be a secondary imputation that the real Jarvis deserves to be compared to a person who holds those kind of opinions. That can also be defamatory.
Here in Australia, when Chris Kenny and the Chaser had their run in over the infamous dog snuggler image, the court rejected the literal imputation, that Kenny snuggled dogs. But it accepted that the secondary imputation might arise, i.e. that Kenny deserved to be compared to a dog snuggler. The case ultimately settled.
There has been an upward trend in damages awards for defamation recently. Six figure judgments are rolling out left, right and centre, even for Twitter posts. So if you're writing satire, you want to have a good think about defamation risk. The Pisstake Defence might not stand up.
We do not disclaim anything about this article. We're quite proud of it really.
