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Internet users who post instant criticism online via social networking sites have been granted new protection from libel claims after the UK's Supreme Court strengthened the defence of 'fair comment'.

The law has now been updated with a defence called 'honest comment', which means that it is no longer necessary for a defendant to provide a full factual basis for any opinions they may express.

The update follows a libel case brought by a covers band, called The Gilletts, against their former booking agency, 1311 Events Ltd, who stopped taking bookings, after complaining online that the band members were 'not professional enough'.

The agency pleaded both justification and fair comment. This defence previously required the author to detail enough facts to let readers make up their own minds about what was being said. But the High Court struck out this defence, leading the Supreme Court to intervene.

The Supreme Court described the underlying case as 'a considerable...storm in a tea cup', but broadened the scope and application of 'fair comment' to make it more suitable for the Internet age.

In his judgment, Lord Walker said: 'The defence of fair comment (now to be called honest comment) originated in a narrow form in a society very different from today's. It was a society in which writers, artists and musicians were supposed to place their works, like wares displayed at market, before a relatively small educated and socially elevated class, and it was in the context of published criticism of their works that the defence developed.

'Millions now talk, and thousands comment in electronically transmitted words, about recent events of which they have learned from television or the Internet.'

Now, anyone being sued for libel can use the defence for comments made in passing reference. 'The test for identifying the factual basis of honest comment must be flexible enough to allow for this type of case, in which a passing reference to the previous night's celebrity show would be regarded by most of the public, and may sometimes have to be regarded by the law, as a sufficient factual basis,' said Walker.

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