Yesterday, Simon Singh won an important appeal in the libel action he is defending against the British Chiropractic Association. Singh is being sued after writing that the BCA “happily promotes bogus treatments” for which there is “not a jot of evidence” that they are effective. In yesterday’s ruling, a distinguished panel of judges declared that Singh’s article should be taken as a “statement of opinion, and one backed by reasons”. This opens the door for Singh to mount a “fair comment” defence (which they prefer to call “honest opinion” although that isn’t the official legal terminology). If the BCA pursue the case further it is highly likely they will lose.
The judgement is available as a PDF and was hailed by commentators as not only an intelligent judgement, but a somewhat literary one too. It quotes Milton, Orwell and Galileo along the way.
Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship was the quickest of the journalists covering this issue to file a report on the outcome, and he has a bit more detail. I contented myself with taking some photos of the press conference, at which Singh and others gave their reactions.
[My photos on the PEN Flickr stream really are becoming a one-stop-shop for all your ‘close-ups of people talking at a public event’ needs.]
Also present at the press conference was the blogger Jack of Kent, who is the one-stop-shop for commentary on the BCA vs Singh issue (Simon says that its the site even he visits, when he wants to know what’s going on with his own case…). ‘Jack’ pointed out that the BCA had chosen to sue in order to protect and enhance its reputation, and discredit Simon Singh along the way. In fact, the reverse has happened. The case has caused much more damage, and much more negative publicity, than the original offending article. A Streisand Effect writ large.
Tag: Media (Page 24 of 36)
I’ve spotted a couple of references recently to the ‘perfect memory’ of the Internet and how it can come back to haunt you in later life. It breeds a peculiar form of self-censorship. First, the now-outed Girl With A One Track Mind says:
I wish my blog wouldn’t continue to bite me on the arse (not in the good way); I’ve held my finger over “Delete Blog?” button so many times.
I can understand why Zoe might want to start afresh, but this sentiment feels wrong and offensive – like book burning.
The other worry is for those who might want to start a political career. James Joyner at the Outside the Beltway blog discusses Philosopher Kings and the potential for a blogger-turned politician.
It seems to me that the chief barrier to bloggers getting elected to public office isn’t so much their typically introverted personalities or lack of access to money but the mere fact that we’ve accumulated a long paper (pixel?) trail of recording every fool thought that’s passed through our minds over the last several years. Even bright, thoughtful, decent types like [Ross] Douthat and [Ezra] Klein — and Lord knows, [Mickey] Kaus and [James] Joyner — have written things that would kill a campaign dead, dead, dead if it showed up in an attack ad.
We could certainly add Sri Hundal and the rest of the Liberal Conspiracy team to that list.
However, Joyner’s underlying attitude is defeatist. I prefer the alternative model, whereby blogging your thoughts allows you to spot holes, inconsistencies and hypocrisy in your own logic. This is Andrew Sullivan’s stated creed and I think it is this principle which sustains him as one of the most-read blogs, both in the USA and internationally.
In UK, the political ‘attack ad’ is still a concept in its infancy. That may change during the forthcoming election campaign, but the parties still seem above that sort of thing. In any case, attack adverts posted on YouTube, can be instantly countered with an ‘reply’ video which links to the context from which the offending paragraph had been pulled. Anyone who blogs is likely to have the skills to do this within the hour. I think that anyone who tried to smear someone with quotes from their own blog at, say, a public hustings, could be easily discredited. A politician who knew what he or she had written (and it is surprisingly easy to remember your arguments, once they have been typed and posted) could easily call-out such a smear or ‘gotcha’ question for what it really is – pathetic and lazy political opportunism.
However, this sort of approach only really works if you engage properly with comments and corrections on the blog. Selective deafness to criticisms only makes the problem worse. I know this is the frustration of people like Justin and Tim when trying to hold Iain to account.
Indeed, it is via Iain Dale that another example of The-Internet-Coming-Back-To-Bite-You emerges. Anna Arrowsmith is a Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, and a director of porn films. Since the Lib Dems tend to espouse “live and let live” style policies, I think this is relatively uncontroversial, but the BBC did a story on it anyway. Iain notes that Arrowsmith’s website also says something far more damaging:
Anna is liberal and open-minded but politically she supports The Labour Party, for all its sins.
Scandal!
Only, not really. The website is clearly several years old (it has plenty of <table> tags for layout, an archaeological relic in web design terms) and