Should You Ignore or Fight Defamation?

We live in an age and time where people get arrested and punished for petty things such as abuse, hate, and the likes. Recently in my country, we've seen people get those who slander their names and reputation, and sometimes it just seems absurd that such a thing is even taken seriously by the law enforcement agency, but then can we completely blame them when someone channels hate towards us and the process defames us without concrete evidence to prove what they say? But in the case someone shows such towards me, will I be taking actions about it or letting it slide? In this article, I'll take an extensive look at my decision and why.

Currently in my country, a week will hardly go by without you hearing of the news of someone who has been arrested for defamation of character, hate speech, and the likes, and sometimes I just find this annoying, but like I said earlier, I can't completely blame those who take actions for such unruly acts directed towards them, because you see, words are like eggs; once broken, they can't be mended again, and if you sometimes don't take action on such accusations being thrown at you from the place of hate, people who really do know you and some of those who do might think that's truly the kind of person you are.

And with the present age of social media, such accusations of defamation usually travel far with many content creators who are on the lookout for content that'll trend, making your image get tarnished, so taking action against such people will help you clear your name, as such people who make such claims against you would have to prove their claim with concrete evidence, and then they can't; they might be charged to make a public apology or face the full wrath of the law that surrounds such offenses.

Personally for me, if I get hate speech from someone, I won't really care about it, but leave them to their anger, especially if I know such a person is fond of doing such, but then if peradventure I perceive that something might have happened between us that might have caused a misunderstanding that went on to lead to this hate melted towards me, I might approach the person and try to clear the air about what really happened, but if they're head bent on their stance, then I'll let them be.

But if that hate crosses the line to the point of tarnishing my image amongst people and I have concrete evidence to prove that, then I'll 100% take it up with the law, because in our world today, silence on accusations and defamation of character is often seen as a sign of admission to the claims, rather than a sign that you actually wanted peace to reign and not cause a scene, like the elders in my tribe will say, "Orúkọ rere sàn ju Wúrà àti Fàdákà," meaning a good name is better than gold or silver, and I won't want to get quiet and let such a person tarnish my name.

Like I said above, I won't really give a damn if the hate is just all about abusing me and the likes, but when it crosses the line to accusations about things I didn't do or defaming my reputation in society, I might first try to reach out to the person to resolve things outside the grasp of the law, but if things persist despite my efforts to not charge them to court, then I might have no choice but to do it, because people in our world today just want to believe anything without hearing your side of the story, even if your side of the story might not be believed, except if the same person who accused you wrongly openly apologizes or gets punished for not having evidence to back his or her claim.

I remember when musician Mohbad died in 2023; many people accused his former record label boss Naira Marley of his death, despite the fact that Marley wasn't even in Africa at the time of his death, given the widespread nature of these accusations. The police had to invite Naira Marley for questioning, and despite the fact that the police didn't find him guilty of anything related to Mohbad's death, would you believe that to this day some people still believe he's responsible for Mohbad's death? That's how far defamation of character can go, and that's not to forget how it reduces the sales of his music and all that revolves around it.

All photos are taken and edited on canva.