Here’s an audio recording of my remarks at the ORGcon panel ‘The right to be offensive: free speech online’.
I saw this event as an opportunity to develop the discussion on offence and free speech that I had at the Liberty AGM panel last month. There, the discussion about offensive words centred around ideas of blasphemy and obscenity, and the conclusion seemed to be ‘people need to have thicker skins.’ When it comes to the criticism and satire of religion or public figures, I agree with this sentiment. But it is a weak and incomplete response to the hate speech and bullying. An article by Helen Lewis at the New Statesman was fresh in my mind – a nasty culture of rape threats and racism seems to be evolving, and it is driving people offline. This is also a free expression issue.
So free speech advocates are faced with a challenge. If we campaign to esnure that offensive comments are legal and permitted in public and quasi-public fora like Twitter and Facebook, what do we do about the hate speech? What do we do about the racist and sexist comments that discourage minority voices from participating in the discussion? To expect these people to get a thicker skin and just shrug it off is a privileged attitude that prioritises the free speech of one group over another.
Human rights campaigners must come up with a solution that addresses hateful comments, but without recourse to law. There may be technical solutions or behavioural remedies we can use to discourage the rape-threats and the sexism and the racism. If liberal defenders of a free internet to do not address this problem, then populist politicians will seize the initiative and burden us with authoritarian speech laws.
Is online vigilantism the answer? Can we not use our own right to free speech to shame the people posting the ugly comments? Fellow pannellist David Allen Green was wary of ‘Twitter storms’, saying that they often result in someone in the storm calling the police. He said that are unfocused and has previously likened them to an Orwellian Two-Minute Hate. But perhaps a more surgical form of online counter-speech is the answer? What would that look like, I wonder?
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/277883863705985024
Tag: Politics (Page 26 of 57)
According to the Mail on Sunday, David Cameron recently learnt of a sex-scandal involving prominent members of his government. ‘For legal reasons’ the paper cannot name the people involved.
On Twitter, people are cautious. Many cite the injunction that prevents anyone naming names. The judgement in the Lord McAlpine vs Sally Bercow is fresh in everyone’s minds. Even guessing may amount to contempt of court.
Meanwhile, blogger Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes) claims to already know the identities, while other journalists say they have worked it out.
During the ‘super-injunction’ furore in 2011 (which culminated in Ryan Giggs being named in Parliament as having taken out such an order to prevent a kiss-and-tell story by Imogen Thomas) I recall that both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph printed ridiculous puff pieces about an actor who had been named on Twitter as having used a prostitute and then taken out a super injunction to prevent the story from vein reported.†. Both pieces called the actor a family man, and the Telegraph cleverly worked certain film titles into the piece that, for those in the know, referenced the sordid tale.
For those in the know.
It may be that Monday’s newspapers contain similar clues. Those who usually try to solve the cryptic cross words may try their luck and deciphering the hints and breadcrumbs buried within the newspapers coverage. In the coming days, look out for odd turns of phrase, and out-of-place or fawning profiles of cabinet ministers in the newspapers. They will be the *innocent face* of the mainstream media, drawing attention to those in the know.
This is all desperately problematic. In the next few days, we may find ourselves in a situation where the majority of the political and media class will know the identity of the Downing Street adulterers. People like me, who exist on the periphery of that world and have a couple of friends in journalism, will probably find out too. That’s if Twitter doesn’t get there first. And everyone who knows will probably tell their partners and a few other close mates, “so long as you don’t broadcast it”.
And if the group of those in the know is sufficiently large, then the privacy of the people involved has not been protected. Their reputation will have been damaged.
In fact, I reckon that I am a pretty good canary-down-the-mine for this. There must be literally thousands of people like me who work on the fringes of politics and/or spend a fair chunk of time on the Internet. Assuming that the identities are not revealed in a big newspaper splash (a possibility) then I will posit that when I discover the identities, then in no sense can it be said that the privacy or the reputation of the people involved remains protected..
This is not a free speech manifesto and I will not break any injunction. Social media and blogging are both forms of publishing, legally no different from writing a newspaper article.
My point is this – there may come a moment in the next few days or week, when there will be common knowledge facts that no-one will speak about in the open, and everyone will play along with the charade that the names remain unknown.
And when societies participate in a collective omertà, we should start to get worried.
Update
Well, that did not take long. I have now discovered the names of the people involved. My methods were so rudimentary I can confidently say that many, many people are now in the know. It will make it easier to spot cryptic clues in the Monday papers much easier (but less fun).
Update II
Trial reveals Brooks-Coulson affair.
†As someone who likes to link to what I am referring to, it is incredibly frustrating to be unable to do so in this case… because I think the injunction may still be in place. I will investigate and post the links if it is legal to do so!
Remember how I blogged about the Afgahni men and women who have acted as translators for British forces should be allowed asylum in the UK?
The Government has said that around 600 translators will be given the right to settle in Britain. That’s a bit of U-turn and its annoying that the media and the public had to mobilise on this issue… but at least the Government has now done the right thing.
Jubilate! The Defamation Bill recieved Royal Assent yesterday. It is now the Defamation Act 2013.
Watching the legislative process up close has been fascinating. It fills me with confidence that candidate laws are put to such detailed and rigourous debate.
To give a sense of how a Bill changes as it passes through both Houses of Parliament, I have created a Defamation Bill (Tracked Changes) document. Download a PDF [223 KB] or a Word Document [49 KB]. It is based on the successive Bills and amendments found on the Houses of Parliament website. In the document, you can see how some clauses were tweaked, with the alteration of a word here or there. In other places you can see where whole clauses were added and then removed, as the House of Commons disagreed with the House of Lords. Continue reading
There’s a little bit of confusion over what happened during the Defamation Bill debate in the House of Lords yesterday afternoon, and today in the House of Commons. This is understandable, as the ‘ping-pong’ process is confusing, with ‘motions to agree amendments’… and amendments to those amendments.
The only issue at stake was was hurdles should be placed before companies wishing to sue. The pre-exising law allows corporates to bully critics with libel threats and a legal ‘reputation management’ industry has emerged, with websites and bloggers receiving threats unless they remove critical content. Which?, the consumer magazine that reviews products, often receives a legal threat after they give a product a poor rating!
In an earlier parliamentary debate, Labour succeeded in adding a significant clause to the Defamation Bill. It introduced a permissions stage for companies (you can’t sue without leave of the court) and asked them to show financial loss. It also extended the Derbyshire principle, so private bodies delivering public services could not sue when they are criticised by citizens questioning how taxpayers money is spent. Three measures in one clause.
Continue reading