Noah Feldman, Columnist

Court Opens a Libel Door and Bruises Free Speech

Should people who post links to disputed articles be exposed to defamation suits? If the possibility sounds scary, that’s because it is.

September 24, 2021 at 10:30 AM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Nunes wins, everybody else loses.
Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

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Retweets are not endorsements, goes the formula. But is a tweet linking to an existing article a republication of the article, legally speaking?

A federal appeals court said last week that the answer may be yes, and on that basis revived a libel lawsuit filed by U.S. Representative Devin Nunes against the journalist Ryan Lizza. The consequences are significant, opening the door to a raft of lawsuits against people who post links on social media platforms or anywhere else.