The Wardman Wire

Free Speech Campaign

(This article has been developed from a comment I left on Nick Baines’ blog, where there was a good debate about the rights and wrongs of anonymous blogging.)

Good Reasons for pseudonymous blogging

I think the right of bloggers to post anonymously/pseudonymously is important, for a number of reasons, but I like the term coined by Nick – “principled anonymous blogging”. Some bloggers have good reasons to conceal their identity, and that should be respected. Here are a few justifiable reasons for bloggers to use a pseudonym:

1 – Physical Danger

For many people, to deny them anonymity is to deny them a voice or put them in physical danger. Consider refugees or campaigners from abroad. What about victims of domestic violence – why should they not be able to speak in public without fear?

2 – Over-heavy restrictions imposed by employers

In this country, we see bloggers sacked If a blogger defames their employer or violates a reasonable contract, then I have no problem with sanctions being taken.

However, in the UK we do not have the balance right yet between freedom of expression, and the right of employers to restrict employees’ actions outside the workplace. This question is tied up with the need to create rational British (and particularly English) laws guaranteeing a right to express an opinion.

3 – Widening political participation

At a time when renewal/broadening of our political process to help individuals participate is perhaps the single most important challenge we face, we should not frighten people away from expressing their views publicly.

A good number of established bloggers have started out without revealing their identity, including me. In my case, I needed to distance my political commentary from a short-term contract in a workplace which required political neutrality. This was one of the coincidental reasons why I have ended up editing a non-partisan blog.

4 – Fear

There are many, many, examples of posts that would not have happened if not made anonymously. One example was the “Dave Walker reposts” here, which were part of a blog campaign starting in summer 2008. Much of the reporting of that saga – some by insiders whose jobs were at risk – would not have happened without anonymity; many people had been subjected to extended bullying at work, and were *frightened*.

Stick to one pseudonym

To me the key point about acceptable anonymous/pseudonymous blogging is that it be done with a consistent identity, so that debate is transparent.

There is an argument that different pseudonyms are acceptable in each niche or community where a person participates; I’m not commenting on the detail of that question here.

Pseudonyms in the wider media

If we are going to question blogging anyonymity, then we have to come up with a set of criteria which we also apply to pseudonyms used elsewhere and far before blogs even existed.

Newspaper diary columns, and writers in general, have used pen-names (or maiden names), for centuries. This is often ignored.

Online anonymity isn’t usually anonymous

In practice, most websites and online companies will divulge identities when faced with a demand from a Court of Law, as has been seen in recent Court Cases.

There are very few publishers in the UK who would conceal the identity of an abusive author. However, a whistleblower would be in a diifferent category.

Wrapping Up

My (obvious) conclusion is that it is not “anonymity” which is the problem, but rather “the abuse of anonymity”; the latter is where our laws should focus.

Local council staff aren’t civil servants but the vagueness of Codes of conduct may lead them to feel they’ve signed up to the same ‘must be a-political’ contract

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Who is Charon QC?

This article is a list of around 15 podcasts Charon QC has done which cover questions around Civil Liberties. I have reposted the article with permission. Interviewees include the following:

1. With Steve Hynes the director of the Legal Action Group.
2. With James Welch, Head of Legal for Liberty
3. Short podcast with blogger, Oedipus Lex: A report from the Convention on Modern Liberty
4. The Jack Straw veto on FOI disclosure of Cabinet Minutes relating to the decision to go to war with Iraq. With Carl Gardner.
5. With Michael Burdett, a solicitor and consultant with HCL Hanne & Co in London
6. With Michael Burdett, about the Legal Services Commission.
7. With Roger Smith, Director of Justice
8. With Ian Parker-Joseph, Leader of The UK Libertarian Party
9. With Carl Gardner on the Lords judgment in Qatada
10. Charon reports on the Geert Wilders affair
11. Judge John L Kane on the war on drugs
12. With Carl Gardner on The arrest of Damien Green MP
13. With Carl Gardner on 42 days detention
14. Gerald Bermingham, Barrister on The Menezes shooting verdict
15. R v Davis – Witness Anonymity with Andrew Keogh, Barrister
16. The right of prisoners to vote with Carl Gardner
17. With John Hirst – author of Jailhouse Lawyer’s blog

As far as I can tell, legal bloggers seem to be the only ones who are still assuming – as a matter of course – that cigars and alcohol are part of the essentials of life, rather than dirty secrets to be kept under the bed with the Spectator and the New Statesman. Given that one is going to smoke and drink, it seems far more sensible to spend your time smoking and drinking, rather than (or as well as) fighting nanny – whose time will be up one day anyway.

Enjoy.

From Out-Law.com, on a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)

Publishers’ indefinite liability for defamatory material in their online archives is not a restriction on their rights to free speech, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled. The decision backs a 160-year-old rule of English law.

The Times newspaper had argued that the burden of indefinite liability was so onerous that it would have a ‘chilling effect’ on archive publishers, but the ECHR has reaffirmed that a new defamation action can be taken every time online defamatory material is accessed.

The European Convention on Human Rights says in article 10:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers”.

This means that a “republication” occurs every time a web page is accessed, and is based on a finding in an 1830 involving the Duke of Brunswick where it was ruled that a “publication” by a magazine had occurred 17 years later when the Duke’s agent obtained a copy from an archive, rather than when the issue of the magazine was first sold.