Wikipedia talk:Libel

Defamation

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)

@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)

Hi @JBW:, 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?

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

Notes

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)

The second sentence

Surely It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that the material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory. is dangerously worded, and it should be phrased as It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that the material they post on Wikipedia is not defamatory. The current text implies that contributors as a body are responsible for everything on Wikipedia, which is surely extremely incorrect. JustARandomSquid (talk) 17:52, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

What is this bullshit?

Who decides what is libelous and what is not? Do you even know what the word libel means? So stop introducing ambiguity and you yourself use a neutral term such as "Defamatory" instead of "libelous". Matrexfaiz (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2026 (UTC)