EU Bans Sock-Puppet Blogs

PhilipMarlowe9000 writes in with news of a new EU directive that will take effect in the UK at the end of this year to ban "sock-puppet" reviews or websites, part of an EU-wide overhaul of consumer laws. From the article: "Businesses that write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be created by customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from 'falsely representing oneself as a consumer.' From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court. The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon."

Comments

Before anyone says anything about free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Please keep in mind that fraud is not generally protected speech, particularly when it relates to commercial speech.

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[MillionthMonkey]

Free speech isn't free if it has "ifs, ands, or buts".

No it isn't. This, however, is commercial speech, fraudulently pretending to be free speech, as part of a ruse to impress people. Commercial speech identifiable as such is known to suffer the trustworthiness problems typical of commercial speech. If a corporation sends its marketing department to blogspot and creates 100 blogs talking about how cool its products are, that's fraud. The company is misrepresenting itself and concealing a conflict of interest. I mean, duh. Even in the crazy United States we have laws saying you can't make ads disguised to look like newspaper articles unless you print ADVERTISEMENT at the bottom so everyone knows you're probably full of it. Free speech is not going to last very long if we use it to excuse cheap commercial hijinks.

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[ricree]

I don't think that you can really use a slippery slope argument here. There have been limits on speech for pretty much as long as the concept of free speech has been around. While there have certainly been abuses, fraud, libel, and other limitations haven't destroyed free speech yet. As far as I can tell, this is simply a logical extension of these limitations. Furthermore, this doesn't effect the content of what people can say. It appears to mostly be a limitation on how people are allowed to represent themselves. The companies are still quite free to heap praise on their products, they just aren't allowed to lie about who they are while doing it.

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[Simon Garlick]

Everyone ignore the posts above by poster "iminplaya". As a registered sex offender and convicted child rapist, he doesn't deserve to be heard in this forum.

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[Miseph]

Your view is overly simplistic.

You ignore the fact that corporations are not people, and as such do not (and should not) have the inalienable rights of a human being. You also assume that the right to free speech trumps all other rights (such as life, property, autonomy, etc.), which is completely untrue, not to mention unjust and far more dangerous than limits on free speech.

Try yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and telling the theater staff that you have First Amendment Rights when they remove you from the premises and you'll find out just how little that applies to private persons on private property.

The Right to Free Speech does not, in fact, apply to that speech which is specifically designed to be malicious, it never has, and such an idea flies in the face of it's very origins (see: Immanuel Kant). Trying to apply it to such actually weakens the idea, and perverts the intent of free speech. Fraud, slander, and incitement are all directly opposed to "free", and as such are NOT protected as free speech.

I also wonder why so many people are convinced that specific limits on free speech are a new thing (they aren't), and that such limits make it impossible to protect speech which needs to be free (it hasn't).

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[jcr]

The expression of an idea does not bring harm.

Sorry, it's not that simple. Threatening to kill someone does indeed harm the person threatened; they are dreprived of their peace of mind, and that's why we have such things as laws against verbal assault and incitement, and restraining orders that can compel a person not to communicate with the target of their malice.

-jcr

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[nickco3]

Also, European human rights legislation only applies to us actual humans, not legal persons. Corporations claiming human rights is a feature of the US legal system.

Re:Before anyone says anything about free speech

[pureevilmatt]

Companies aren't individuals nor should they have the rights of individuals.