Lee Hsien Loong v Leong Sze Hian
[2021] SGHC 66
establish an irresistible inference that the Article was part of the Post.
All that is required is for the plaintiff to show that the desired inference
is one of the possible inferences.
43
In addition, I note two Singaporean decisions pertaining to when
publication online suffices as publication for the purposes of defamation. In
both Qingdao Bohai at [35] and Golden Season Pte Ltd and others v Kairos
Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd and another [2015] 2 SLR 751 (“Golden Season”)
at [54], the High Court held that publication by the defendant occurred if (a) the
defamatory statements were made available online, and (b) the defamatory
material was received by a third party in such a way that it is understood and
intelligible. (The related but separate question of where such publication
occurred is determined by where the reader or end user accesses the statement:
Ng Koo Kay Benedict at [26]). This implies that a Facebook post which carries
a link, and which makes the defamatory statement available, would count as a
publication if it could be established that third parties had accessed that link. In
contrast, and subject of course to the precise facts, a hypothetical Facebook post
that merely referred or alerted other users to the existence of the original
defamatory statement, without carrying a link, might not count as publication. I
do note that it is perhaps easier for a Facebook user to post or a share a link to
the original statement than to compose and type out an entirely new statement
alerting others to the original, but such ease of posting or sharing cannot rescue
a post from being publication for the purposes of defamation.
44
The decisions in Qingdao Bohai and Golden Season are decisions of
coordinate jurisdiction, and therefore not binding on me. But, with respect, their
approach is sound in principle. Given that it is common ground that the
defendant did make the Article available online by linking to it in the Post (thus
satisfying the first requirement set out in Qingdao Bohai and Golden Season),
23
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