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[Boreas]

Originally Posted by barbara

I was thinking this sounded like blackmail..... But then others brought up extortion. What's the difference between blackmail and extortion?

Oh, I dunno, about the same as the difference between slander and libel, I guess.

John

[d-ray657]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Oh, I dunno, about the same as the difference between slander and libel, I guess.

John

Both fall under the label of defamation. Generally Libel is a written defamatory statement, where slander is verbal.

Regards,

D-Ray

[Boreas]

OOPS! I see Don beat me to it.

Originally Posted by barbara

I was thinking this sounded like blackmail..... But then others brought up extortion. What's the difference between blackmail and extortion?

Originally Posted by Boreas

Oh, I dunno, about the same as the difference between slander and libel, I guess.

John

Okay, I'm going to try. I think blackmail and extortion both involve a threat to do harm to a person (or some other entity like a business) unless some sort of payment is made. With blackmail the action would involve revealing some sort of compromising information that was potentially harmful to the person. With extortion it might involve something like a threat to burn down a business or do some sort of harm to the person or business unrelated to any sort of embarrassing information.

If I'm right, blackmail may be a better description of what this creep was doing.

John