'How well does traditional libel law apply to the Internet?" That was a question discussed at a continuing legal education program in New York.

Just asking the question suggests that the answer is "not well."

The answer comes easily for me, because I have, for more than 20 years, viewed defamation law as defective, even as applied to traditional media — ever since I served on the national committee that drafted the Uniform Correction and Clarification of Defamation Act. A bill to enact that proposal will be introduced in the Minnesota Legislature this winter.

The scheme of traditional defamation law is to compensate victims of libel and slander with a money award. That is an expensive and painfully slow system to administer; it is a poor substitute for a correction designed to provide a prompt restoration of the good name of the person defamed. But defamation law was superficially acceptable when defamers were usually rich media companies with the resources to actually pay the money awarded.

Now the most common defamers are individuals with few assets — users of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, semi-amateur bloggers, and all of us who click the "send," "forward" or "reply all" buttons without giving our messages appropriate thought.

For most victims of defamation on the Internet, significant money recovery is unlikely.

The other problem with Internet defamation is that it is so rampant. Those who send words along the Internet are much less conscious of the danger of defamation — and the harm it causes — than the professional journalists of the media. And those senders do not have editors. And there are so many of them.

The perpetrators and the victims of Internet defamation number in the millions.

A recent article ("How Facebook tries to get people to play nice," Nov. 3) made clear that hurtful comments, including defamations, are known by Facebook to be a real problem. According to the article, Facebook has 80 people working on the problem.

What victims of Internet defamation (and media defamation, too) almost always really want is restoration of their good name. They want a correction.

To send a correction on the Internet is easy and cheap. In fact, making a correction can be done with the same "send" and "reply all" buttons that sent the defamation along the Internet in the first place.

But one of the great problems with traditional defamation law is that making a correction does not end the matter. In fact, it complicates life for the defamer, because the correction becomes proof of falsity if the victim brings a lawsuit for money damages.

The consequence is that those who carelessly libel someone are reluctant to provide a correction. The correction can come back to bite them.

The bill to fix defamation law in Minnesota by enacting the Uniform Correction and Clarification of Defamation Act applies to both Internet and media defamation and encourages corrections in many ways. Most important, it makes the fact of a correction inadmissible to show falsity if, despite the correction, a lawsuit is brought.

If a correction is made, the act also limits the recovery in any lawsuit to "provable economic loss." But the act puts no new limit on recoveries where there is no correction.

The Uniform Correction and Clarification of Defamation Act was drafted back in 1993, but it did not do well in legislatures around the nation. It was perceived until recently to be a favor to big media (not a legislative favorite and an industry reluctant to petition legislatures).

But the Internet has made defamation a problem for ordinary citizens.

Last year, the uniform act was adopted by Texas and Washington state. And this year, the Council of State Government included the act in its list of suggested state legislation.

The Uniform Correction and Clarification of Defamation Act encourages corrections in five different ways:

1) If there is a correction, the act limits the liability of the defamer to actual financial losses — from loss of a business opportunity, say, or a job.

2) It requires the person defamed to ask for a correction. That gives the defamer an opportunity to make a correction.

3) It requires a person asking for a correction to provide to the alleged defamer available information relevant to truth or falsity of the alleged defamation.

4) The bill allows the defamer and the victim to negotiate (with the help of a judge, if necessary) the words of the correction and its method of distribution and its prominence.

5) Most significant, it makes a correction safe by barring its use in court to show falsity.

Having the record promptly set straight by a correction or clarification is what nearly every victim of defamation really wants — and that is what they should receive. That is the objective of the Uniform Correction and Clarification Act.

The Minnesota Legislature should enact this fine law in 2015.

Jack Davies is a member of the national Uniform Law Commission and a former appellate judge and state senator.