By Simon Moores, 5 March 2008 12:24
COMMENT
Anonymous attacks by bloggers badly affected Simon Moores' public and private life. When he tried to stop them he discovered some surprising facts about the internet and the law.
In the autumn of 2005, I wrote a column welcoming the arrival of the citizen journalist as a much-needed boost to an increasingly moribund democratic process in the UK.
I had been running a blog, Thanet Life, for two years before its popularity encouraged me to roll up my sleeves and run as a local councillor in last May's local elections.
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Perhaps thanks in part to my blogging, I won in my home town - a vindication, I thought, of this communications medium. But I've been proved wrong.
Last month, I reluctantly suspended my weblog. Why? Because I'd had enough of the constant flow of insults and defamation. Worst of all, my family was being abused in the street by complete strangers. "Councillor axes weblog" was the front page headline in the local paper.
Blogging has come a long way since I started in January 2002. Since then Google has bought Blogger.com and everyone who's anyone appears to have a weblog - Hillary Clinton, David Cameron, Bart Simpson and more.
The citizen journalist now has a reach quite undreamed of until relatively recently and can influence local public opinion - and perhaps in some cases even the national mood.
But there is a much darker side to blogging, summarised by one of my own readers who wrote: "It is not healthy for people to have influence without consequence." He's probably right.
Some of the attacks on me were launched in anonymous blog entries on Blogger.com.
Few people realise that with the rise of Google our own laws on defamation have flown out of the window. As a result, anyone who blogs anonymously in the UK can say anything they like about another person or business.
We have complex libel laws in the UK, which govern the press, business and the individual. Yet it seems Google will defend absolutely the anonymity of a blogger and the content he or she produces.
I asked Google to remove the offending material. Google, which is also a UK limited company, answered:
Blogger.com and Blogspot.com are US sites regulated by US law. Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content.
We allow our users to create blogs, but we don't make any claims about the content of these pages. We strongly believe in freedom of expression, even if a blog contains unappealing or distasteful content or presents unpopular viewpoints.
Given these facts, and pursuant with section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, Blogger does not remove allegedly defamatory, libellous or slanderous material from Blogger.com or Blogspot.com.
I am told that even a court order from a British judge is not sufficient for Google to change its mind. So we now appear to have a situation in the UK where our own laws governing defamation, decency, libel and the simple test and protection of truth are governed by the more generous interpretation provided by the US legal system.
So if I made defamatory, racist or homophobic remarks about an MP on silicon.com, I could be sued. But if I'm an anonymous blogger, it is acceptable because I'm apparently protected by US rather than UK law.
This is a deeply disturbing state of affairs. Like the posting of inappropriate, violent and offensive content on YouTube, this situation requires proper and urgent debate from our politicians.
Margaret Briffa, an internet and ecommerce lawyer, tells me the position taken by Google not only makes no concession to UK or European defamation laws but is so one-sided in offering no help to the victim of unfair and vicious blogging that it seems to contravene the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Complete freedom of expression is like opening Pandora's box. It's the online equivalent of cheap supermarket lager and people become drunk on it.
Are we then faced with an internet fait accompli in a global environment dominated by US law? Is our own legal framework governing decency and expression really so impotent and ineffectual?
Welcome to the brave new world of influence without consequence.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Carl Brown
I understand the disgust you felt. However, if we allowed the government to make moves to ban material from the internet then innocent people will lose out.
Google should remove hate-filled and racist statements - that I agree on. But is it right that you should ask them to follow through on people's opinions? Move to a more regulated forum for your blog if you are unhappy.
2. Simon Moores
It's not really a question of what's written on one's own Blog if, like me, you follow an acceptable use policy. It's what's written on other Blogs under "anonymous" which is a source of concern.
Is such anonymity sacred when it potentially breaks the law of the land. i.e. if a british writer makes racist, or equally defamatory or violent remarks on a UK weblog. Should that person be accountable under our own laws or should it be a matter for US law, which allows just about anything one wants to be said under freedom of expression?
What's your view?
3. Karen Challinor
strictly speaking the internet can be regarded as a new country
it is essentially borderless and pretty much lawless
and it's denizens react violently at external attempts to impose borders and law
it's a frontier
it has the potential to do away with geographical countries and create a planet wide government where everyone has an equal say
sadly we have a lot of growing up to do before that happens and I doubt it will happen in our or our childrens lifetimes
until that time though the internet will be like the early wild west, those with the biggest and fastest guns will win
and attempts to put the genie back in the bottle by legislation in individual countries will result in the development of an arms race based in countries that don't have the same legislation
ultimately such legislation will prove futile
so I'm sorry you were abused, but it's going to happen to us all until the internet effectively takes control of itself, and that won't happen any time soon
4. Simon Moores
Thank you. I can take the abuse, and it continues in other forms on other weblogs but I suspect the same small politically oriented group of characters are involved. Given the crudity of expression involved, most intelligent people can see what is taking place.
It's when the nasty stuff expands outside the virtual world and one's family becomes involved that one needs to question the moral purpose of anonymity of this kind. Blogging has given both the citizen journalist and the mentally ill obsessive a tool of remarkable power.
Perhaps the answer to the intenet is now a retreat into privacy but I fear it's too late.
5. David Synnott
I'm from the US...and I have to disagree with your opinion re: our libel/slander laws.
To allow government to go about vigorously suppressing all falsehoods will inevitably allow government the power to suppress the truth. To allow government the power to suppress things that some find offensive, will inevitably lead government to suppress inoffensive and valuable things. History proves that power corrupts...and power to control political expression, even in the cases of "offensive" material or for the public interest, will allow those with the power to suppress expression that they disagree with...even when it's in the interest of the public to be able to see that expression.
Our courts made a decision, at these points, that if freedom of speech means anything, it means the right to say things that go against the fundamental values of society, that may be unpopular, that may be wildly untrue (but are said without malice), that may impair the government from being able to keep secrets without public oversight--but that all of these evils are minor compared to the possibility that somebody, at some point, could use those same laws to stop the free flow of information, because that would be more fatal to democracy than any other weapon imaginable. To suppress the free marketplace of ideas makes democracy impossible, and slander & libel laws, designed for just and noble purposes, can be used in the wrong hands, to oppress, and to censor.
That being said, I'm sorry that you were hurt by anonymous, defamatory, character assassins. But, in my opinion, the best answer to hate speech is to raise your own voice, against the haters, along with those of your supporters and colleagues, and not by going to court. Let the people see who the haters really are, not allow them to claim to be victims of censorship...which will give them the credibility they surely don't deserve. The best answer to hate speech is more speech.
6. anonymous
Get out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat.
7. anonymous
If you want UK libel laws in effect, us a site who's servers and there contents are under UK jurisdiction, or use a service that allows you to moderate the comments. If every jurisdiction made concessions to every other jurisdictions laws, as Margaret Briffa suggests, we'd have a real mess. How would you like it if the UK made concessions to China or another repressive regime regarding the contents of your blog?
We'd quickly find our selves in a race to the bottom as far as free speech is concerned. I am highly skeptical of her claim that Google's actions contravene the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
8. Adewale Oshineye
This sounds like a job for Kant's Categorical Imperative: how would you feel if everybody else acted as you do?
Would you be comfortable having your online speech curtailed by the laws of other countries? If not then explain why you feel the laws of the UK should have primacy? Or explain how service providers should decide which set of laws to obey? Should they try to obey all of them?
9. Philipp Frech
Dear Mr. Moores
A British author IS subject to UK law if he posts defamatory statements in a blog - no matter where it is hosted! - if the statement targets UK citizens.
The problem lies in the identification of the wrongdoes, who typically hide behind a pseudonym. But also here, UK law gives you an opportunity, namely by allowing you to unmask the anonymous poster IF you file suit. The unmasking is even possible in US law, which you depict to be too tilted towards free speech considerations.
Therefore, one might give you one important advice: Try to go after the (alleged) wrongdoer rather than the intermediary. UK law gives you the means you need for that.
Best,
Philipp