Defamation, Free Speech, Jurisdiction and the Net?

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm writing a legal article on jurisdiction and defamation via the web. There seems to be a trend in various national courts (eg the UK, Australia, Malaysia) to treat the place where a web-page is *read* (ie browsed) as the place of publication of its contents, regardless of where the page or the server serving it are located. This has far-reaching ramifications, as it opens up anyone publishing anything on a web-site (and also Usenet) in America to the more restrictive domestic laws of other countries -- not just for slander/libel/defamation, but also treason, lese-majestie, hate speech and general censorship laws (think Yahoo and France). Does anyone have personal, practical experience of being threatened by foreign governments or government bodies for material put up on the Net? Or is it just an inevitable consequence, to be overcome by geographical tagging of a browser's location (think icravetv.com) or similar measures?"

"Many people assert that informed Netizens see this as a way of fragmenting the Net, of imposing geographic boundaries and destroying part of the fundamental location-agnostic nature of the web and the Net -- ie, that it's a Bad Thing. Is this really so? Does anyone see this as a good, or at least a neutral, thing?"

Comments

its simple really

[kfckernal]

Just try to make web sites that please all foriegn governments.

Re:its simple really

[st0rmshad0w]

Would that be a 404 or 403 error?

Re:its simple really

[A Commentor]

No, some text on the 404 or 403 page might offend someone...

Try:
<HTML&gt <HEAD&gt </HEAD&gt <BODY&gt </BODY&gt </HTML&gt

Re:its simple really

[FatRatBastard]

No, the relig. fundamentalists don't like bodies mentioned, let alone HEAD!!! Might excite the masses.

hmm... anonymous?

[bbh]

I'm writing a legal article on jurisdiction and defamation via the web

Bernie again?????

Bad question

[Have Blue]

Anyone who solicits advice on legal issues from slashdot is a fool. Do your own research, you'll get better results too.

Playing with fire

[Deadplant]

hmmm, enough speculation, let's do some real-world tests...

King Fahad bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud is a stinky fat old man who likes to molest little boys.

George W. Bush is a homosexual rapist who wears women's underwear. (I say homosexual because I figure GW is probably a homophobe, not 'cause I consider it an insult generally)

President Chirac is a murderer! he killed my entire family!

ok, I'm gonna go hide for awhile now while we wait to see the results...

Re:Broadcast mediums and other countries?

[Happy Monkey]

it's not the broadcaster's fault that the laws of physics don't allow radio waves to stop cleanly at the border.

That's the answer! Farraday cages around each country.