Slashdot Mirror
Gag The UK Net in 3 Easy Steps
Ponderu writes "BBC News is carrying a story about how easy it is to get a website pulled in the UK. They asked several ISPs how they would react to a sample site and the news is not encouraging. " Very frightening.
'Free speech' and 'the 1st amendment' are complete red herrings in this debate. The 1st amendment applies only to Congress, and *not* private business. Corporation can censor whatever and whenever they like on *their* systems/equipment/whatever.
The problem with the recent Godfrey vs Demon ruling is the application of libel laws and the way they allow you to sue not only the originator of the libel, but also the publisher and distributor.
The result of this is that when faced with a choice to sue (a) the writer of the libel or (b) the distributor of the libel, it's generally the case that the distributor has the deeper pockets. Therefore, they get sued, not the author.
Because of this, if a newsagent carries a newspaper that contains a defamatory article, you can infact sue the newsagent, or the publishing company, or the author. In the past, such cases have generally resulted in the publisher being sued, although the newsagent (distributor) has been sued on occasion.
However, in the case of the Internet, it's the ISP's who have the cash, and so they are the ones who get sued.
Having said that, the case that started all this, ( Godfrey vs Demon ) related to a USENET posting. This posting was not from a Demon customer, but ended up on Demon's servers in the natural course of things. Demon, upon getting a notice to remove the article, ignored it. Demon have now, in effect, been treated as the publisher of a USENET article that did not originate from them, and since it was deemed libellous, they've paid out a sum not unadjacent to 1/4 million pounds.
THe situation now is that Demon are paranoid about USENET postings and will suspend your net access for even posting a link to an article the is defmatory/libellous, as that is also deemed as publishing.
Whilst ISP being responsible for their users' web sites is acceptable - there is no freedom of speech, you are using the resources of a private company and they are under no obligation to let you make potentially business-damaging allegations on their equipment - there is now an air over extreme over-cautiousness, which will hopefully be moderated back down to something more sensible given time.
The real problem is USENET. There is no way an ISP can be responsible for a USENET feed, 99% of which does not originate from their customers, and for which there is no real method of control for content based cancelling of litigation-inviting messages.
-- I'm drinking myself to sleep again...
Because, as the saying goes, you might get it.
ISPs have so far pretty much had the best of both worlds, with most of a common carrier's freedom from responsibility for content and none of their obligation to take any and all traffic. That idyllic period may be ending.
People who look at the British and German cases, and lesser ones that have happened in the USA, tend to propose common-carrier status for ISPs. ISPs, on the other hand, know better. The common carrier's immunity for responsibility for the traffic they carry stems directly from their obligation to take any and all comers willing to pay the tariff. If an ISP actually were to fall under common-carrier law, some very unpleasant things would happen. Like, for instance, spam.
Keep in mind that at present there is very little legal basis for the 'law of cyberspace'. System administrators, under peer pressure, keep limits on net abuse not because it's the law but because being too slack with abusers is a good way to end up firewalled. Common-carrier status would change that fundamentally by setting a legal standard for refusing packets and users alike: as long as there isn't a law against it, you have to carry it.
Of course, the response to that is a huge upswing in abuse, to which the only remaining response is to -- you guessed it -- make certain actions on the Net illegal.
The legislative process being what it is, you can bet that lawmakers' ideas of what should be illegal won't agree much with the existing Internet's cultural norms. Lawmakers, for instance, don't seem to have any objection to spam; they don't do e-mail anyway (that's for flunkies to do, with the weekly abstracts presented on nice crisp paper.) It shouldn't be necessary to enumerate the things that our Lords and Masters don't like that we want to keep safe from them.
Bad as the situation with defamation claims may be, always keep in mind that it could be lots worse.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The first amendment says "Congress shall make no law..". It is designed to protect people from the government, not from other people.
In the U.S. there is no right to a web page. The only thing the first amendment protects our speech against is the government passing laws.
However, an argument can be made that the laws that allow frivilious lawsuits and bully ISPs into making changes like this limit free speech. But people would be even less happy if their right to sue was taken away.
I don't know how things work in the UK per se, but this is something that even if they had a first amendment, it would not address. The ISPs censored the material - not the government.
1) The RIP bill which is going through parliament at the moment which would basically allow the authorities to demand anybody's security keys and allow covert monitoring of ISPs.
2) The new tax laws which came into effect this month (IR35), which basically mean that self-employed programmers pay more tax than any other industry (~ 50% of their _company's income).
3) The recent demon et al. decisions, which hold ISP's responsible for defamatory material on their servers.
Quite how the government sees the situation as inviting to e-commerce companies is beyond me.