Recognizing equal status for fiction (made up about real people) as for actual facts is essentially letting fiction be as vocal (or even flush) the facts about an issue in the public mind/opinion.
Made-up fiction about real people, even when positive, may rather be taken as negative. What we may all agree as sth. positive, today, may be thought of as offensive at a later time (and rather good reasons may accrue, by that time, for the reversal).
Fiction, even when explicitly&strongly stated to be 'mere fiction', labeled as a novel, or whatever, through the tension/emotions it builds during the reading process, and very mostly due to the sleeper effect ought to (or, must) be shunned (people do not have cleanly separated boxes in their brains where they optimally sort out everything they have heard/read/etc. and to some extent or another, anyone may have some junk in their minds - unless, but hardly, if they always remember where they have got(ten) it from).
anti-abuse strategies, and a a few research-ideas about little-people, etc.
A freedom-of-expression is to let fight against the catastrophical, when even the juries would not.