38 ms·

Sleepwalking? The UK has a fine and longstanding tradition of censorship. $current year is no exception.

samwillis 4y ago
Exactly, we have had the concept of "Libel" in uk law for over 700 years [0]. It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Fundamentally some of this is built into British culture, and is significantly different to US culture where "free speech" rules supreme. But it's the bleeding of US culture into that of the UK though the media+internet that leads to a more vocal debate around these issues than before. To quote form the Wikipedia article below: "English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world." The world is so much more connected now it's inevitable that cultural and legal differences will reduce and some sort of equilibrium will be found. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Exactly the same in Austria. Often politicians and even shitty businesses use the libel law to get undesirable negative information about them removed from public spaces An MP was called a "corrupt traitor" on Facebook and Facebook was forced to remove that comment under the libel law. Often businesses will force Google, Kununu and other websites where people can leave reviews, to remove the negative ones under the libel law, that even doctor's practices do it. Basically, your not allowed to air the dirty laundry of the rich and powerful unless you have bulletproof hard evidence, wich you can never really get as the GDPR and other strong privacy laws make legal evidence gathering nearly impossible by individuals.
  - jan_Inkepa 4y ago
    I've been legally threatened twice by a German restaurant on google for leaving a 3 star review on the basis that it damages their ability to do business. Pretty ridiculous... . Google required me to post proof I had been there, but that didn't stop the Restaurant threatening a second time...
    - blacklion 4y ago
      My wife's brother, who lives in Munich, say, that it is impossible to leave bad review for doctor or hospital, because here is court decision, that patient is not qualified (doesn't have education and training) to distinguish good medical service from bad one!
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        >that patient is not qualified (doesn't have education and training) to distinguish good medical service from bad one! This statement seems true for the vast majority of patients (although not the part where government prevents people from sharing their thoughts).
        lostlogin 4y ago
        I work in healthcare. If you want to cause a massive, expensive and all consuming drama, physically hurt someone and then tell them that they are wrong and you didn’t. It’s surprisingly how often this is done.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        I was referring more to a patient not being able to discern whether or not a certain diagnosis or treatment plan is the best option, just as they would not be able to with a car mechanic.
        lostlogin 4y ago
        Oh for sure, sorry. I was more meaning that from the patient’s perspective, it’s hard to tell the difference. It helps that I live in NZ where you can’t sue very easily for injury, and most medical errors are covered by a national insurance scheme which applies to everyone.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  I'm convinced that libel laws in the UK boil down to putting the two sides on front of an extremely wealthy and connected judge who decides which between the complainant and the accused is poshest, then makes the other one apologize. You can be so posh that you accuse the current PM of raping a dead pig's head in the widest circulating tabloid and face absolutely no consequences.
  - logicchains 4y ago
    >You can be so posh that you accuse the current PM of raping a dead pig's head in the widest circulating tabloid and face absolutely no consequences. I was under the impression that there were no consequences because it had actually happened?
    - cvcount 4y ago
      There doesn't seem to be any good reason to believe it did: the authors of the book don't even back up the anecdote particularly strongly. https://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2015/oct/09/isabel-oakeshott-david-cameron-piggatecall-me-dave https://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2015/oct/0... "The thing to point out about that story is that there is no need for burden of proof on a colourful anecdote where we’re quite upfront about our own reservations about whether to take it seriously."
    - notahacker 4y ago
      There were no consequences because the Prime Minister didn't sue, both because Prime Ministers generally have more important and less embarrassing things to be doing that testifying in court that they never stuck their penis inside a roast piglet for a funny photo during their adolescence (even if they didn't!), and because the authors knew how to word rumours and innuendo so that it probably didn't fall foul of libel law, and that a PM they knew personally would go all "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response" in response rather than spend the next few years pursuing a vendetta against them.
      - lostlogin 4y ago
- flipbrad 4y ago
  The Defamation Act, in England and Wales, brought in specific and very helpful reforms for defendants. It's privacy law that claimants now use, not least because you don't have to prove falsehood or serious harm, unlike in defamation claims.
- iso1631 4y ago
  > US culture where "free speech" rules supreme Oh sure your right to say "I'm going to blow up a school" is of course protected. Say "I'm going to shoot the president" though and off to jail. Want to run an advert that someone thinks it false? Nope. Print some stories the government doesn't like? nope. Draw a picture of Lisa Simpson being screwed by Rupert Murdoch as a symbol of the collapse of the quality of the simpsons? Off to jail for you And of course there's the whole mess of copyright, trademarks and patents which infringe on your right to speech
- fmajid 4y ago
  The libel laws do exactly what they were designed for: prevent uppity peasants from importuning the people who really matter, a group that now includes Russian oligarchs (basically kindred spirits to the inbred descendents of the original robber barons).
benevol 4y ago
Britain? All major media outlets and social network platforms worldwide now have established censorship as "the new normal". The only mainstream platform now setting itself up to become the exception to this is the one platform that since a few weeks gets consistently attacked by the establishment: Twitter.
- blacklion 4y ago
  With this new UK legalization it outreach to private communication (messengers, no matter encrypted or not) as well.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  Don’t make me laugh. Have you seen how many people have been banned from Twitter in the last week because they criticized its manchild-in-chief?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
    No, I haven't, but I'm interested to hear about it. Got any reading material?
    - notahacker 4y ago
      A whole bunch of people including a few minor celebrities got banned after changing their username to "Elon Musk" and tweeting jokes in response to the self proclaimed "free speech absolutist" declaring that unlabelled parodies would be an automatic ban. Apparently even names like "Elon Musk (Parody)" lost posting privileges https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/07/twitter-will-ban-permanently-suspend-impersonator-accounts-elon-musk-says-as-users-take-his-name https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/07/twitter-w...
      - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
odiroot 4y ago
Came here to say basically the same. Especially the libel laws are extreme.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
+1 Taboo is a UK stable food, and it goes hand in hand with censorship. In fact, with the current political and economical situation, I'm surprised it's not getting worse. The Finger would be tempting to create in a time of crisis.
- foldr 4y ago
  staple food

Exactly, we have had the concept of "Libel" in uk law for over 700 years [0]. It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Fundamentally some of this is built into British culture, and is significantly different to US culture where "free speech" rules supreme. But it's the bleeding of US culture into that of the UK though the media+internet that leads to a more vocal debate around these issues than before. To quote form the Wikipedia article below: "English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world." The world is so much more connected now it's inevitable that cultural and legal differences will reduce and some sort of equilibrium will be found. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Exactly the same in Austria. Often politicians and even shitty businesses use the libel law to get undesirable negative information about them removed from public spaces An MP was called a "corrupt traitor" on Facebook and Facebook was forced to remove that comment under the libel law. Often businesses will force Google, Kununu and other websites where people can leave reviews, to remove the negative ones under the libel law, that even doctor's practices do it. Basically, your not allowed to air the dirty laundry of the rich and powerful unless you have bulletproof hard evidence, wich you can never really get as the GDPR and other strong privacy laws make legal evidence gathering nearly impossible by individuals.
- jan_Inkepa 4y ago
  I've been legally threatened twice by a German restaurant on google for leaving a 3 star review on the basis that it damages their ability to do business. Pretty ridiculous... . Google required me to post proof I had been there, but that didn't stop the Restaurant threatening a second time...
  - blacklion 4y ago
    My wife's brother, who lives in Munich, say, that it is impossible to leave bad review for doctor or hospital, because here is court decision, that patient is not qualified (doesn't have education and training) to distinguish good medical service from bad one!
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      >that patient is not qualified (doesn't have education and training) to distinguish good medical service from bad one! This statement seems true for the vast majority of patients (although not the part where government prevents people from sharing their thoughts).
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        I work in healthcare. If you want to cause a massive, expensive and all consuming drama, physically hurt someone and then tell them that they are wrong and you didn’t. It’s surprisingly how often this is done.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        I was referring more to a patient not being able to discern whether or not a certain diagnosis or treatment plan is the best option, just as they would not be able to with a car mechanic.
        lostlogin 4y ago
        Oh for sure, sorry. I was more meaning that from the patient’s perspective, it’s hard to tell the difference. It helps that I live in NZ where you can’t sue very easily for injury, and most medical errors are covered by a national insurance scheme which applies to everyone.
pessimizer 4y ago
I'm convinced that libel laws in the UK boil down to putting the two sides on front of an extremely wealthy and connected judge who decides which between the complainant and the accused is poshest, then makes the other one apologize. You can be so posh that you accuse the current PM of raping a dead pig's head in the widest circulating tabloid and face absolutely no consequences.
- logicchains 4y ago
  >You can be so posh that you accuse the current PM of raping a dead pig's head in the widest circulating tabloid and face absolutely no consequences. I was under the impression that there were no consequences because it had actually happened?
  - cvcount 4y ago
    There doesn't seem to be any good reason to believe it did: the authors of the book don't even back up the anecdote particularly strongly. https://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2015/oct/09/isabel-oakeshott-david-cameron-piggatecall-me-dave https://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2015/oct/0... "The thing to point out about that story is that there is no need for burden of proof on a colourful anecdote where we’re quite upfront about our own reservations about whether to take it seriously."
  - notahacker 4y ago
    There were no consequences because the Prime Minister didn't sue, both because Prime Ministers generally have more important and less embarrassing things to be doing that testifying in court that they never stuck their penis inside a roast piglet for a funny photo during their adolescence (even if they didn't!), and because the authors knew how to word rumours and innuendo so that it probably didn't fall foul of libel law, and that a PM they knew personally would go all "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response" in response rather than spend the next few years pursuing a vendetta against them.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
flipbrad 4y ago
The Defamation Act, in England and Wales, brought in specific and very helpful reforms for defendants. It's privacy law that claimants now use, not least because you don't have to prove falsehood or serious harm, unlike in defamation claims.
iso1631 4y ago
> US culture where "free speech" rules supreme Oh sure your right to say "I'm going to blow up a school" is of course protected. Say "I'm going to shoot the president" though and off to jail. Want to run an advert that someone thinks it false? Nope. Print some stories the government doesn't like? nope. Draw a picture of Lisa Simpson being screwed by Rupert Murdoch as a symbol of the collapse of the quality of the simpsons? Off to jail for you And of course there's the whole mess of copyright, trademarks and patents which infringe on your right to speech
fmajid 4y ago
The libel laws do exactly what they were designed for: prevent uppity peasants from importuning the people who really matter, a group that now includes Russian oligarchs (basically kindred spirits to the inbred descendents of the original robber barons).

benevol 4y ago

Britain? All major media outlets and social network platforms worldwide now have established censorship as "the new normal". The only mainstream platform now setting itself up to become the exception to this is the one platform that since a few weeks gets consistently attacked by the establishment: Twitter.

blacklion 4y ago
With this new UK legalization it outreach to private communication (messengers, no matter encrypted or not) as well.
Analemma_ 4y ago
Don’t make me laugh. Have you seen how many people have been banned from Twitter in the last week because they criticized its manchild-in-chief?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  No, I haven't, but I'm interested to hear about it. Got any reading material?
  - notahacker 4y ago
    A whole bunch of people including a few minor celebrities got banned after changing their username to "Elon Musk" and tweeting jokes in response to the self proclaimed "free speech absolutist" declaring that unlabelled parodies would be an automatic ban. Apparently even names like "Elon Musk (Parody)" lost posting privileges https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/07/twitter-will-ban-permanently-suspend-impersonator-accounts-elon-musk-says-as-users-take-his-name https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/07/twitter-w...
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago

odiroot 4y ago

Came here to say basically the same. Especially the libel laws are extreme.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

+1 Taboo is a UK stable food, and it goes hand in hand with censorship. In fact, with the current political and economical situation, I'm surprised it's not getting worse. The Finger would be tempting to create in a time of crisis.

foldr 4y ago
staple food