Posts on the 2013 Defamation Act, mostly on the process it introduced to protect internet hosts that did not wish to get into complex arguments about truth and other justifications. The idea of passing those to courts doesn’t seem to have gained much traction
The Defamation Bill arrived in the House of Lords this week. Most of the debate concentrated on how to reform the definition of defamation and the court processes for dealing with it. However Lord McNally (at Column 934) gave a good summary of the twin problems affecting websites that host content provided by third parties: […]
The Defamation Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons this week with only minor changes to the provisions for third party postings on websites: A new power (New Clause 1) will be created for a court to order takedown of an article if it has been the subject of a successful defamation case. […]
I’ve sent in a Janet response to the EU’s consultation “A Clean and Open Internet: Procedures for notifying and acting on illegal content hosted by online intermediaries”. At the moment the E-Commerce Directive (transposed into UK law as the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002) says that websites aren’t liable for unlawful material (either criminal […]
As the BBC are pointing out, there has been a lot to celebrate on Twitter recently. However there have also been quite a few instances of tweeters (the French refer to us/them as “twittos”) getting it badly wrong. We should all know that “email is like a postcard”, but sometimes it seems that “Twitter is […]
The European Commission have opened a consultation on “notice and action” procedures (in the UK we tend to refer to them as notice and takedown) by those who host content on the Internet. Since Janet customers may see a different side of the issue from us as operators of the network, it would be helpful […]
One of the perverse effects of the current law on liability of website operators is that it discourages sites from checking comments and posts provided by others. Instead the law encourages the operator to do nothing until they receive a complaint. Earlier this week the House of Commons Select Committee considered whether an amendment was […]
The 21st June sitting of the Commons Defamation Bill Committee provided some hints at answers to my questions about the Bill’s definitions and process. On the question of who will be a “website operator”, able to benefit from the new defences, the Minister suggested this should be left to the courts, who can adapt to […]
The Defamation Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Most of the MPs who talked about the new defences for website operators (clause 5 of the Bill) seemed to appreciate the complex balance between protecting reputation and protecting free speech, and agreed with the Justice Secretary: our current libel regime […]
Under current defamation law, if a website wants to avoid all risk of liability for material posted by third parties then its best approach is to not moderate postings when they are made, and remove them promptly when any complaint is made. As I’ve pointed out in various responses to consultations (and as now seems […]
Two consultations have come along at once – one from Westminster and one from Brussels – that both seem to recognise the problems with incentives that current liability rules create for sites that host third party content. Under both the UK Defamation Act 1996 and the European eCommerce Directive (2000/31/EC) hosts are discouraged from themselves […]