More on Freedom of Speech. A bit of a recurring theme, really.

[rhythmaning]

A couple of days ago, I picked up on a post by matgb about a blog which had been peremptorily shut down by its webhost under legal threat.

Around about the same time, a friend of mine was writing about the same issue; except that he is under threat of lawyers as a result of comments left on his blog.

From what he says, this has been going on for several months and has caused a great deal of stress. The company and its lawyers seem to be bullying, and as a result, the post they were complaining about has been removed to stop further legal action.

This is a very sorry state of affairs.

Comments

[matgb]

Cursory reading, it does look like they're going OTT and abusing the legal process, but IANAL, I'll contact some people after work, see if there's a generally available 'bloggers guide to libel in the UK', and if not see if we can get one going.

Company sounds like both out of touch and clueless, but I don't know details.

[filmstalker (from livejournal.com)]

Thanks for posting about this rythmaning, I was hoping it would get some publicity.

Mat, they most definitely are over the top in their response, and completely out of touch.

In a moment of strength I did try to talk to the head of the company about starting a blog, but it's been shown that pitching an idea to him is not an easy thing.

[matgb]

'some' publicity? I've seen it linked to from a big chunk of the top ten blogs, although I saw it here first. If you didn't see it, Unity is spot on here:
http://www.ministryoftruth.org.uk/2007/09/26/rewriting-britains-libel-laws-1/

And there's been lots of other ideas as well. I think someone needs the guts to go to court and fight it, get a ruling that's actually coherent, your case would've been a good one but it's not something I'd want to do. Hope it can sort itself out in some way.

[filmstalker (from livejournal.com)]

Thanks for the link. I've only seen it picked up on four sites now, are you saying the story is spreading elsewhere? Oh I would love to say who it is...

I think it would have been a good case, and although I don't think I would have won, I know I, and bloggers, would have come out well from it.

However that would have probably meant I would be paying some of the costs, and I just couldn't afford it, especially with a case going on for months and months.

[matgb]

I also saw it on Devil's Kitchen:
http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2007/09/soliciting-bullying.html

So that puts it being linked to by a top rated Labour blogger and a 6th highest overall political blog (if you trust Iain Dale's analysis).

Which means it's been read by a lot of people. Unity's post is the significant one, he's got reach within the Labour party, which matters more for the next few years.

I do think we need a test case or an Act of Parliament though, I suspect the latter would be easier to acheive.

BTW, in case you don't know, if you go here:
https://www.livejournal.com/changeemail.bml
you can put an email address is and receive notification of replies to comments, one of the reason Livejournal blogs get more comments is they make it easier to keep track of where the comments are coming from.