It should be okay to gossip, says I

This is old news here in America, but still relevant for us who are Malaysian and/or blog from Malaysia: "California court says bloggers can't be sued: State's Supreme Court said a federal law gives immunity from libel suits", from last November.

"In deciding a case closely watched by free speech groups, the court said a federal law gives immunity from libel suits not only to Internet service providers, like AOL, but also to bloggers and other users of their services. 'Subjecting Internet service providers and users to defamation liability would tend to chill online speech,' today's unanimous ruling said. [...]The California Supreme court said that granting such broad immunity for posting defamatory statements 'has some troubling consequences'. Nevertheless, the court said, 'Until Congress chooses to revise the settled law in this area' people who contend they were defamed on the Internet can seek recovery only from the original source of the statement, not from those who re-post it."

In other words, American won't get sued for gossiping. I think the same should be for us, for the simple reason that it should not be the state's responsibility to discipline people who behave badly. It should be our individual responsibilities to discipline others who behave badly, however.