This month's theme is social media, and it is fitting to begin with the oldest of civil wrongs: defamation. It is, in our experience, the issue that brings clients to us most urgently in this space, because the harm caused by a defamatory post rarely stays still. It is shared, screenshotted and re-posted long before a letter of demand can be drafted, let alone a summons issued.

1. The Same Law, a Faster Medium

South African courts have confirmed, repeatedly, that there is no special “social media defence” and no lower standard of liability for a post than for a newspaper article. If anything, wide online dissemination is treated as an aggravating factor when a court assesses damages or the urgency of relief, because the harm to reputation is correspondingly greater and more difficult to contain.

It is also worth remembering that liability is not limited to the original poster. Liking, sharing, retweeting or tagging someone in a defamatory post can, depending on the circumstances, expose the person doing the sharing to liability in their own right.

2. What a Plaintiff Must Prove and What That Means for a Defendant

To succeed in a defamation claim, a plaintiff must establish three elements: the publication, of a defamatory statement, concerning the plaintiff. Once those three elements are established, our law presumes that the publication was both wrongful and intentional. The onus then shifts to the person who made the statement to raise a recognised defence, such as truth and public benefit, fair comment, or privilege.

3. The Courts' Preferred Remedy: Urgent Interdicts, Not Just Damages

That approach has continued into this year. In Malatjie v Modiba (2026/105783) [2026] ZAGP JHC 569, the Gauteng High Court granted an urgent final interdict against a respondent who had published corruption allegations on X, declaring the statements unlawful, directing their removal within 48 hours, and awarding costs on the punitive attorney-and-client scale.

The court held that damages in due course were an inadequate remedy given the ongoing, widely disseminated harm. Separately, a Gauteng High Court contempt finding earlier this year, arising from a failure to comply with an order to apologise for defamatory social media claims, resulted in a custodial sentence a reminder that these orders are enforced with real consequence.

4. Practical Implications for Businesses and Individuals

Businesses and individuals should monitor their online footprint, treating reviews, comment threads and tagged posts with the same seriousness as press coverage, since a defamatory review or comment left unaddressed can cause reputational harm well beyond its original audience.

Where the conduct involves repeated or threatening online behaviour, the harassment route is worth considering/ The Protection from Harassment Act 17 of 2011 can offer a faster, more accessible remedy than a plenary defamation action, and can be used alongside, or as a precursor to, an urgent interdict, as the Harman matter shows. It is equally important to act on the evidence quickly, preserving screenshots, URLs and timestamps immediately, since posts are frequently deleted or edited once a complaint is raised and urgency is often central to obtaining effective relief.

Closing Thoughts

What both Harman and Malatjie show is that our courts see little difference between a defamatory headline and a defamatory post: the same principles, the same defences, and increasingly the same urgency apply. For individuals and businesses alike, the practical message is to treat a public social media account as a public statement, because our courts plainly do.

Reputational harm caused online is not confined to strangers and public figures. It travels just as easily through the accounts of a business's own employees, and what an employee posts, comments on, or shares can just as readily land on their employer's desk.

This article is published for general information and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on a particular matter, please contact Gittins Attorneys Inc.