Europe To Force Right of Reply On Internet Communication

David Buck writes "Today, the Council of Europe (an influential quasi-governmental body that drafts conventions and treaties) is to finalize a proposal that would force all Internet news organizations, moderated mailing lists and even web logs (blogs) to allow a right of response to any person or organization they criticize. This would mean that you would be required to post the responses as well as authenticate their origin and make the responses available for some period of time. This will likely have a chilling effect on Internet communication (at least in Europe)."

Comments

This is what happens...

[mofochickamo]

...when you give European bureaucrats $200 million per year and tell them to do something useful. There is a European history of stupid government leadership: most Popes, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, Chirac (j/k, don't flame me all you French ./ers), and finally, all united Europe type bodies (like the EU, UN, KKK, Black Panthers, and Teamsters).

Europe is like the United States. The only main differences being: U.S. economy is dominate, U.S. military is dominate, U.S. uses 1 main language compared to Europes many, the U.S. has actually defeated England in a war within the last 500 years, the U.S. Constitution has remained relavent for 200+ years, U.S. citizens value freedom and will kick ass to maintain it, the U.S. is very ethnically diverse (the U.S. being the country of immigrants that it is), and, finally (and my personal favorite), the U.S. has lower taxes that most (if not all) of Europe.

I know that many Europeans (read German/Swiss) believe that they are intellectually superior to Americans, many (read French) believe they are more unique than Americans, many (read eastern Eurpoean basketball players) believe that they "got game" or have "skills", many (read all) believe that Americans are fat (true), and many (read Finnish) believe that Linux was invented in Finland (when in fact it was invented by Al Gore working closely with Larry Ellison). While this all may be true, you still can't say so if I critize you on my blog in the U.S.

Re:Newspapers too -- yes

[TheCrazyFinn]

You are not obligated to provide a forum for their speech.

Freedom of speech doen't mean that you need to let them speak at your cost, merely that you can't stop them from speaking.

But of course, there's no freedom of Speech in Europe, just freedom for correct speech.