The problem with libel suits is that as far as I could tell, there aren't any in the canon wizarding world, as evidenced by Rita Skeeter writing whatever the heck she wanted.

It's a sticky inference to make. Maybe there are no libel laws as you say; or maybe:

1. Malfoy has enough money to hire lawyers who successfully beat even the magical equivalent of England's plaintiff-friendly libel laws
2. Variant of above; it is known that attacking the Prophet/Malfoy will be a poison pill for the attacker as the legal fees are too high to be borne and/or discovery will be abused to dig up all sorts of dirt and private information.
3. People fear the behind-the-scenes retaliation of the Malfoys and their alleys
4. Variant of above; fear retaliation by the Daily Prophet (monopoly paper) which doesn't rise to the level of legal actionability - constant mocking and negative references.
5. Death-eating in particular is not good grounds for a libel suit; perhaps magical England has a factual defense like the US, and all the accused are in fact former Death Eaters.
6. Variant of above; Magical England has libel laws, just they are in general like American libel law and it's awful hard to win such a lawsuit.
7. The Prophet carefully writes too vaguely to be sued in the first place.
8. Rowling just didn't think about it; the British press is scurrilous, so the magical press is scurrilous. The various economic and legal incentives are too far to the background to be even thought about. Eliezer borrows this assumption, and in keeping with his medieval evil Magical England interpretation, it doesn't matter why the press is evil and freely accusing people of Death-eating.

Given the uncertainty of the libel suit point, and the canon that goblins are touchy murderous nasty customers, I'd rather point to powerful factions rather than a big libel suit as why people would accept Skeeter hiding or going into exile.