A civil court in Bariloche ordered a woman to pay 500,000 pesos in moral damages to a local couple after she published defamatory claims about their poultry shop on Facebook on July 10, 2021.
The Cost of a Facebook Post
Civil and Commercial Judge Mariano Castro ruled against Claudia Núñez following a lawsuit filed by Hugo Mario Tarabini and Mabel Lucía Spinelli, the owners of a poultry shop in Dina Huapi. According to the court documents, Núñez published accusations in the “Soy de Dina Huapi” Facebook group—which had nearly 12,000 members at the time—claiming that the merchants fed “chimangos and cats with chicken scraps” and that their practices attracted rats to the neighborhood.
Escalating Financial Penalties
In addition to the 500,000-peso indemnity for moral damage, Núñez faces substantial financial penalties covering the legal process. She must pay statutory interest dating back to the day of the original post, alongside procedural costs exceeding $ 1,3 million, which cover lawyer fees and the work of a computer forensics expert.
The court also mandated that within 10 days of the ruling, Núñez must post the complete text of the judicial sentence directly onto the “Soy de Dina Huapi” Facebook profile. Tarabini and Spinelli had previously preserved evidence of the digital attack by certifying the social media post before a public notary before initiating legal action.
A Rejected Defense
During the proceedings, Núñez defended her actions by stating she never intended to defame anyone and only wanted the merchants to stop feeding animals after a piece of chicken allegedly landed in her yard. However, municipal records undermined her defense, showing that her formal complaints against the shop owners had been declared null and void, and that the merchants had never received any municipal fines. Witnesses failed to corroborate her claims that the business owners fed animals with waste.
The Weight of the Bench
Judge Castro emphasized that while citizens hold valid rights to complain about local waste management, those concerns do not grant anyone the legal right to publicly depict merchants as dirty or repulsive without concrete evidence. The magistrate noted that the online attack caused severe distress to a family whose livelihood depends on food production.
The ruling highlighted a broader societal issue regarding digital conduct, pointing out that social media platforms normalize the exposure of personal honor and privacy. The court observed that the digital format frequently masks the unlawful nature of insults and injuries that would be immediately recognized as actionable in other contexts.
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