Slashdot Mirror
Proposed UK Online Libel Rules Would Restrict Anonymous Posting
judgecorp writes "A Parliamentary Committee in the UK has suggested that sites should be protected against libel claims against contributors — as long as those contributors are identified. Anonymous postings should be taken down if someone complains of libel in them, in a set of proposals which online community groups have described as 'chilling.'"
It was only a matter of time before the absurdly loose libel laws and near total lack of privacy law in the UK combined in some manner even more horrifying than either of them were individually.
Synergy at its darkest.
:(
I know that UK libel laws are stupidly easy to abuse, but does anyone know if those laws can be applied to a website hosted outside the UK and not having a direct UK affiliation (ie a .com not a .co.uk)?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
The way I see it, there is no way for the UK government to control UK or foreign citizens posting on foreign sites. All this new statute will achieve is moving the servers offshore and killing homegrown businesses. Sure, the new sites will not have the .co.uk domain, but with so many TLDs available today, I doubt it makes as big a difference as it used to.
As an example, one of the sites I frequent is radomcarmodel.to for Toronto, not for Tonga. We are yet to have a single visitor that made that confusion.
The internet was for a long time, a "wild west". This bought a magnification of human nature. It brought astounding good, people communicating instantly with others all around the world about their interests, collaborations to accomplish amazing things, freedom of communication, cross cultural contacts. It brought also trolls, idiots, collections of self reinforcing stupidity, harassment, greed.
But above all, it brought something the authorities couldn't control. And that scared them - it made them vulnerable to their own version of the Arab Spring, even if peacefully so, by shining a big light on their actions. It meant people couldn't be protected "for their own good". It meant there was communication they couldn't control. That couldn't be allowed to stand. The good that anonymity does will be lost, because of the bad it allows.
So: it's inevitable that it becomes much harder to be anonymous online, not just in the UK, but in the USA and elsewhere. Sure, those in the know will post through anonymous proxies and VPNs and so on, at least until such encrypted traffic is blocked. And then there is steganography, but at each of these steps, the number of people knowledgeable enough to do it becomes 3, maybe 4 orders of magnitude smaller.
It's only a matter of time until the internet becomes the most powerful panopticon the world has ever known. There aren't enough people who care, to stop it from happening.
everyone is called "bill gates" from that moment onwards.
to code or not to code, that is the question.
It's important to understand that in the UK (and Australia... and Canada... and many other places) there are much, much stronger legal principles surrounding defamation than you are used to in the US. The idea is that you are free to say anything - but not free to cause harm to others without compensating them. So if you publish something which alleges that a particular individual is a child molester (and they aren't), they are entitled to come after you to recover in dollars the harm you have caused to their reputation.
There are scenarios in which both the US and common law systems seem perverse. In the common law world, defamation often becomes the tool of the rich and powerful to silence criticism or discussion about them. A country like Singapore demonstrates what happens when common law defamation is abused to the fullest extent. But in the US, people at times appear to have liberty to destroy reputations without consequence under the guise of "free" speech.
So to consider this, you have to start from the proposition that if someone publishes something which is defamatory of someone else, that person has a prima facie right to sue and recover damages. Another principle of common law defamation is that anyone involved in the publication process, or republication, is potentially liable along with the person making the defamatory statement. Including, for example, the operator of a website.
Right now, without any reform, it is already the case in many common law countries that a person who has been defamed on-line may pursue the website operator for disclosure of information about the original poster of the defamatory publication. In the context of anonymous publications, it already makes sense for the website to collect as much info as they can get away with about their users in order to protect them in this scenario. Where I live (Australia) this happens almost by default - anonymous posting is rare, and most sites make at least a token attempt to get your name and email address. I can also guarantee that any Australian website hit with a threat about a defamatory third party comment they are carrying will pull the comment instantly.
So the real question is, should defamatory anonymous on-line posting be regarded as similar to defamatory graffiti on a toilet door, where although someone is strictly speaking liable for it, there is general acceptance that to find them would be impossible? Or should it be regarded as something closer to a newspaper or television station which republishes someone's defamatory comments? In that scenario, the newspaper/TV station along with the person who made the comments would all be potentially liable.
Personally, I favour the "Wild West" view of the net. The almost absolute freedom of speech it provides in a practical sense also results in a corresponding decrease in the credibility accorded to any one posting on-line. Not too many people are dumb enough to read user comments on a website and take them with anything less than a shovel full of salt. However, I suspect our parliamentary and judicial overlords will see it rather differently, and this type of proposal will eventually make it into law...
End rant... if anyone's still reading.
Read Pynchon.
The members of this parliamentary committee are pedophiles.
Sincerely,
-Anonymous
P.S.: Oops, sorry. I meant "pædophiles."
Oh yes, the right to anonymously slander and libel people is such an important right, taking that away would be chilling.
All the proposal says is that if you run a site, you'd better be willing to moderate the anonymous trolls unless you want to be accused of libel. And to be fair, if an anonymous libel is posted on your site, it's hard to see who's legally liable but yourself when you let it stand.
Really, whining that this is an affront to free speech is missing the point. A right is a right as long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights. Free speech ends at libel and slander.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Tried similiar in South Australia recently.
I believe that it got smacked down fairly quickly as the timing was also related to local elections.
People argued that if free political speech is restricted when each comment can be assigned and recorded against your name, people will never say anything for fear of reprisal and that leads to a dishonest discourse.
"You're a pedophile and hurt small chidren!"
"Got any proof of that?"
"Ur, no. But you still are!"
"Okay then. No harm done. You just proved yourself to be an idiot, yes?"
"Uhh ..."
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Europe has freedom of speech, subject to laws and regulations which may be enacted limiting speech.
Not quite. It's actually subject to laws and regulations which may be enacted limiting speech and which are necessary for the protection of the rights of others or the prevention of crime. A law which arbitrarily limited speech without being reasonably aimed at one of the two above goals would not be allowed under European human rights law.
Could it be? And if so.. what is exactly being enforced. Things like this are so gray.
Suppose anonymous posting were illegal in the UK. Then suppose I called up a friend in the US, where it is not illegal. I said to him, "Hey, go to this site with your anonymous account, and post this: 'I saw John Graham smoking a big fat dooby"? Would it be illegal for me to call my friend and request this? Maybe that still counts as slander... I mean, unless it were true.
Suppose I post on a website with my full name, but that website decides one day to anonymize all posts? Maybe by simply removing the user name for aesthetic reasons. Is it my responsibility to know this and withdraw the post?
Then we get into the question of "what does it mean to post". Suppose I visit a search engine that shows all recent searches in real time. Then, I search for "Jonathan Graham is a monkey humper".... I was just searching after all. Was that a post?
when everyone's afraid of being prosecuted for libel when they visit your country.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If such legislation is passed in England it will be interesting to see if the UK government uses the Supreme Court to force it upon Scotland also. Otherwise would sites have to differentiate the geographical location of the poster to determine whether Scottish or English law applied?
"You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead!" - Stan Laurel
You'll probably find that by complying the first few times, you've pretty much stymied any chance of defending yourself legally. It's almost an admission: "They deleted it when asked, your honour, which means they must have known it was defamatory and yet they won't delete the other comments we've pointed out to them".
What you should have done is just sent back an email saying "Posters on this forum take responsibility for what they post and even retain copyright of it. If you believe something posted to be infringing a law, please file a court order to require me to identify the poster, or delete specific posts, and I will be happy to do so."
You're basically being held responsible for other people's posts, so offer to identify them so they can be forced to remove the post. And you're under no obligation to NOT mention a company at all. There's nothing in law that stops you saying "X threatened to sue over this post, so I've taken this post off", where X is a private individual or company and not a law enforcement entity, unless you receive a court ORDER about that.
Personally, in the same position, I'd probably have deleted the posts too, but when they start threatening silly things, I'd have just enlarged the "I've been sued" text one point size per email / letter / threat received from them until I received some sort of court order to remove that reference.
It is not libellous or defamatory to post a fact.
I can't wait to start being a flamboyant lying asshole on TheGuardian under the name "David Cameron".
Yes, we need to slash the power of government so that the free market can sort everything out. Oh, wait...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Let's take Slashdot as an example. I am posting using my account, but there is no automatic way for this account to be linked to me the legal entity. In respect to this proposed law would this count as an anonymous post? If this is a back door to forcing people to link all their online activities to their real life identity, that would be a major problem.
Isn't that a pretty weak standard to fall back on for something like this?
I mean, where's the requirement that it actually *BE* libel?
It could be a completely true statement...It could be just some random post that somebody disagrees with... and have no bearing on truth or falsehood at all... all somebody has to assert is that it contains libel, and by law the post would have to be removed.
"If someone complains"... what a completely ignorant standard.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I received a legal letter today from a manufacturer of a product that was unhappy about comments made about their product. We are based in Australia, and it is very sad what is happening. We offer a place for people to exchange views on products as a by product of discussing other things on our forum. This is the second time that he has threatened us with legal action. I complied and removed all mention of his product as per his wish but left a post about the posts being deleted due to legal action. Well, the letter came today. He is making a range of accusations and basically wants to stop all mention of his product. It is very intimidating for a website with virtually no revenue, so we are left to ponder what our next move is. Remove all posts, or get a lawyer to go through the posts, and publish the non defamatory posts and see where it settles, but the risks and the costs of defending peoples rights to discuss a product are very high. I have met some of the users of the product and there are some issues with it I believe, but I think he may just be able to silence any unhappy reviews.
Just make sure you only publish the truth. If someone says "Shampoo X caused second degree burns and all my hair to fall out" you should be able to prove it.
If it's just "I don't like the smell of Shampoo X" that isn't libellous.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The trouble with this issue is that there is genuine merit on boths of the argument. Anonymous posting does have advantages in some contexts and whistleblowing in the public interest is a time-honoured tradition. On the other hand, I'm a great believer that with freedom comes responsibility, and effective anonymity by definition removes all accountability for someone's actions. As others have amusingly noted, without any need to act responsibly, a significant number of people won't, which in everyday life spoils things for everyone else.
I'm not sure whether the proposals here strike exactly the right balance, but it seems to me that neither absolute free speech/total anonymity nor automatic public naming of everyone is a viable way forward.
The usual argument for the former is something about disproportionate powers to penalise an identifiable critic. In reality, the government/legal system should be protecting those people against unjust retribution in most cases. If the government is itself the target of the criticism and is sufficiently corrupt to try to silence justified criticism through dubious means then you need a lot more than free speech to fix your problem. Consider the events of the past year in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iran.
The usual argument for the latter is something about taking responsibility, but neglects the important benefits of privacy to free and constructive discussions on difficult subjects, such as those mentioned by the Mumsnet reps in recent BBC coverage of this topic. There is no need to force someone to disclose their identity to the entire world unless they are actually doing something wrong, and there should be due process to discover that just like any other legal action.
If we accept that a middle ground is necessary to strike as fair a balance as possible between competing but incompatible legitimate positions here, then the big question becomes how to deal with actions that can potentially have an immediate impact and spread rapidly causing irreparable damage, but which may be doing so legitimately, before any court action can reach a useful conclusion. Some sort of safe harbour/temporary hold system seems to be working better than anything we had before in the broadly similar context of copyright infringement, so I don't think that's an absurd place to start.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Paging Dr. Bob. you have an incoming call
Sad news- chiropractor Doctor Bob was found dead at his Maine home this.... er, no, wrong story...... I meant Doctor Bob turned out to be an imposter.
:-)
I was shocked, *shocked* at the news that Doctor Bob, who I had trusted for so long, wasn't real.
Er, no, wait... actually, I wasn't surprised at all, but I was quite amused anyway.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I didn't read that thread because the topic intrest me (shocking I know) so I never new that Bob was outed as someone else's sock puppet.
got the joke
Table-ized A.I.
I didn't read the thread myself either; I also found that post via someone else's link. And I don't think that Doctor Bob was a "sock puppet" so much as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek and good-natured troll.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).