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Europe, Free Speech, And The Internet
drdale writes "Declan McCullagh responds at CNET.com to a proposal by the Council of Europe to require Internet sites to publish replies by individuals whom the sites criticize. This would apply to all web sites, apparently, including blogs. Per McCullagh, the Council's proposals do not have the force of law, but often serve as the basis for new laws." Imagine the chilling effect if McCullagh's own politechbot and similar sites had to follow such rules.
Of course, that's mostly useful in non-litigatious countries (;-))
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
It seems like big business will just use this as a way to stamp out or obscure dissent. Every blogger that makes a negative comment about the music industry will have to post RIAA propaganda on their webpage, for free.
Sometimes stories expand on a previous article... perhaps Slashdot should allow "Story Threading", allowing multiple stories to be threaded together. Perhaps almost in an Everything2 sort of way?
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
There's a part of me that's entertained by how exploitable the system would be:
1) Goad someone in to mentioning you on their website.
2) Demand right of reply.
3) Just like politicians never reply to the actual question, nor do you.
Now you get someone else to pay all of your hosting costs for you.
Imagine Petsmart, "PetCo has described themselves as the best pet store in the country. We demand the right of redress to fill their site with advertising for our own store."
Every time Microsoft posted anything about Linux, the open source community would get granted rebuttal space on Microsoft's own web servers.
Not only that but who gets the right of reply? Linus? Every contributor to Linux? Anyone who's ever reported a Mozilla bug?
Then there're the counter exploits: Refuse until they take you to court. Continue refusing until the day before the court date. Then post the rebuttal on the same page as the now two-years out of date story.
The reality is it's totally unenforcable. Sit back, rather than get worked up over it, let them try it and watch it fall to pieces around them.
I think the US actually is the one not getting it (or both the US and EU).
Basically whoever controls information (media) controls the society. And if there is no regulation that would prevent someone or a small group of people to gain control over most of mass media (current situation in the US and EU), then these people can control society.
In US, people think that this is ok. But in Europe there is a limit of what you can do with this capital to influence society.
I can give another example of such law. In Slovenia, when you are publishing a comercial newspaper, the editor must not have stocks in the company that publishes the newspaper. Maybe this seems strange at first, but it is one minor thing that happens to improve media space.
There should be rules to prevent complete usurpation of media by capital. I don't know if this is the best one, but better something than nothing.
Mind something: the point in this law is not that the goverment would censor the media, but that everyone can participate somehow in mass media.
Yes, it might seem wierd, but you are _entitled_ to participate in creating mass media, if the media touches you. I think this is great.
Now what do I do? Post my rebuttal on my own site, hosted on a lousy residential DSL, or in my slashdot journal. Nobody, I repeat, nobody, is going to read my rebuttal. However, if I let them publish my rebuttal I might at least find the same readers the other article found. Perhaps even enough so that I can be hired again.
In the US, I would need to sue RTL, which of course is impossible because you know well that the one with money wins. Quite inconvenient if I just lost my job due to that article at RTL.
Apart from that: nobody forces anyone to read my rebuttal. They still can see my rebuttal, say: Oh, it's that crackpot Jawtheshark, I don't care what he has to say. What this kind of law ensures is that I have the same chance to be heard than a powerful news organisation. (And don't say RTL isn't powerful, unless you start to see what kind of mighty group that organisation is)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
As I stated in response to the original posting on this topic, I don't see this as chilling. In fact, I see this as encouraging and supporting dialog. This is no different from the old FCC rules, no longer with us, that required TV and radio stations to air responses to editorials.
In looking at something like this we have to balance the burden of the requirement against the public benefit of it being in place.
So, what is burden? Well, you would have to have a "letters to the editor" place in your web site, blog, or ezine. From a human factors point of view, you should have an indicator that would call out that a piece has a response to it. In terms of system building and design, this would be trival to add to blogs and web sites.
What is the benefit? Well, when reading a piece, you get to see the "other side of the story" from the person, persons, or organization which are the subject of the piece.
From my point of view the minimal burden coupled with the benefit of getting a more complete picture of a situation only equals goodness.
This brings me to my final point: how, why do people see this as chilling? When has dialog ever been chilling. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who is reported to have said, "Freedom of the Press belongs to those that own printing presses." Yes, the cost of entry for publishing the internet has dropped. But in some ways the cost of attention has gone up. If you write something about me, I can go and setup a blog and write a response, but I have no way to insure that your audience has the opportunity to see my response. This proposal would give me the opportunity to get my story out. If you are going to call me out by name, shouldn't I - in the sense of fairness - have the opportunity to let put out my story and for folks to know it is there? To have a chance that they will see it and chose to read it?
First, remember that the proposal doesn't oblige you to post a reply to your expressions of opinion. Only purported statements of fact. Anyone who's ever been libelled by a large and powerful organization knows how hard it is to get redress: this is a step towards liberating the individual from arbitrary slander and vilification. (When a Sunday newspaper called a friend of mine "A NUTTER" in banner headlines, it took him a year of full-time work to fight the newspaper's lawyers and get compensation).
Second, the proposal doesn't oblige you to post a reply, anyway. It obliges you to post a link to a reply, and that link can be to the complainant's web site. In fact, it generally ought to be. That's hardly too onerous.
Now imagine a Web where these things happen as a matter of course. The innocent reader, stumbling on a statement that Coca-Cola have started to put the cocaine back into Coke, or that Hemos is still beating his boyfriend's wives, will see a link to Coca-Cola's or Hemos's rebuttal. And if the rebuttal says something untrue (as opposed to offensive) about the poster, then the poster can demand a link back to his own rebuttal. The lucky Web surfer gets to read a free and interesting debate, all for the price of a few hyperlinks.
Assuming that we can find a way of authenticating the source of a reply (eg. by registration and digital signatures), I'd like to see this as a standard feature of blogging software. Offended by something untrue in this entry? Click here, enter a URL, and the entry will acquire a SED CONTRA item that points to that URL. No real cost to the blogger, and a richer and more interesting blog for everyone to read.