Freedom of speech attacked – and we sit by and watch
Dear Conservative bloggers,
I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed with us as a group. Regardless of whether you blog for personal reasons or blog to support the party, there are some issues that transcend party allegiances and party memberships – and I can think of no better example than freedom of speech. When freedom of speech is attacked we should all come together and fight to support it, yet I have seen little evidence that the removal of the Harry’s Place blog in the face of libel allegations has even registered on the conservative radar.
Thankfully Harry’s Place is now back courtesy of a more respectful ISP that doesn’t crumble in the face of ‘complaints’ about a website. However, the implications of this incident for freedom of speech should interest every single blogger in the country, including centre-right thinkers. Alisher Usmanov’s attack on Craig Murray following his expose of previous criminal activity was sufficient warning about the threats facing bloggers. Usmanov, who is very wealthy, managed to get Craig Murray’s website to mysteriously disappear under the threat of legal action. By chasing after the ISP of the blog and threatening them instead, he was able to make the ISP cower in fear to the point where they pulled Craig’s site. Now Harry’s Place has been the victim of a similar strategy by lawyers who claimed that Jenna Delich (a fairly unsavoury character, from what I read) had been ’slandered’ and got the ISP to remove the blog - although it has now found a new home and is back online.
The interesting point to note about both these cases is that no legal action was ever taken against either Craig Murray or Harry’s Place. You would think that if someone felt libelled by false comments on a blog, they would use the courts – but no. In a tacit admission of guilt, they go after the ISPs who are terrified of libel cases (which would inevitably publicise the information that made the cowards go after the ISP in the first place), and this has now proved to be a successful way of censoring websites on at least two occasions. It doesn’t matter where you sit on the political spectrum. This is bloody serious. Imagine how you would feel if your ISP shut down your blog because some coward threatened them on the basis of wholly correct information that you covered. Even left-wing bloggers who don’t like Harry’s Place (which is also generally left-wing) stood up for freedom of speech and helped publicise the case, but the conservative blogosphere – bar a quick mention by Iain Dale this morning – remained almost completely silent at the time of writing.
Naturally, the mainstream opposition parties are notable by their absence on this issue. They don’t want to get involved in something like this, even though one of the most basic principles of a functioning democracy is under threat. UK libel law does not need strengthening but the spines of political activists, political bloggers and MPs certainly do if this is how we react to freedom of speech being so openly assaulted. I hope that this lack of support from fellow members of the blogosphere does not repeat itself in future.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
P.S. Feel free to have a look at what Jenna Delich has been up to, including linking her website to that of a former Ku Klux Klan leader and known neo-nazi leader.
Witanagemot Blogs
You’re not wrong, but maybe a little harsh… Thing is, the only thing that you’ve written on the issue was this piece berating others for not writing anything!
I was unaware of this story until Dale mentioned it this morning. Once again it’s barely a political issue at all – if an ISP decides that it is in their interest to block a specific site, it isn’t really our place to prevent them doing so.
The best way to combat this sort of behaviour is surely to name and shame the ISPs who don’t believe in the right to free speech and hope that the competetive Market breeds ISPs who market themselves as being against removing without warning sites who have complaints against them
“it’s barely a political issue at all”
You think that freedom of speech being curtailed by threatening libel action is not a political issue? You don’t think politicians and political organisations have any reason to care? I wonder if your reaction, or indeed the public’s reaction, would be any different if Harry’s Place had posted something on Islam and been shut down as a result?
Naming and shaming the ISP sounds great in theory, but what if the major ISPs put their heads together and decide to block websites on request or decide that some content (e.g. extreme religious views) should be banned for fear of libel action – would you be worried about free speech then?
I`d never heard if it ? Nothing new is it , Maxwell was appearing on chat shows doling out advice for years when everyone in the world knew he was a crook, only Private Eye dared say so.
PS Just read some of the Harry stuff and frankly its agony. It seems to have at least one ism or an ist in every line still ,take your point .
I take your point, Newmania. This in itself is not a huge front-page headline story, but the implications are huge with regard to free speech on the internet and the vast majority of bloggers not giving a damn.
Interesting that you raise the Maxwell issue, since Private Eye was perfectly entitled to write what they wanted about Maxwell as long as they could prove their allegations to be true in a court of law – that’s how our libel system works. When the self-professed victims bypass the courts and threaten ISPs, things get a lot murkier.
I think there’s an assumption that everybody reads everything on the net (and how I wish there was time for that…).
If you don’t read Harry’s Place yourself, or read a blog that picks up or links to the story, you won’t necessarily know about it.
In fact, you might not know it was a censorship attempt even if you did. At first, I thought it was just ‘technical issues’ until I found the reason posted at Unenlightened Commentary.
The story did pick up rapidly yesterday, and things got resolved sharpish once bloggers started linking and supporting. A pack, not a herd…
Perhaps you have followed the Guardian case with Tescos. Tescos have relied on the fact that loss or reputation refers to the reputation you have, not the one you deserve. This is to do with complex tax avoidance ruses used by the Supermarket.
As this is not illegal only unlovely , publicising the fact , to the detriment of their reputation is , they claim, actionable . It seems a very odd thing as that would imply you are not actually beyond the clutches of the powerful even if what you say is true
I think that’s it anyway, sounds odd I must admit
Julia, I would be delighted to be proved wrong by lots of conservative sites linking to Harry’s Place as this story spreads around the blogosphere – but I don’t believe it will happen or has happened for the simple reason that free speech being attacked on a left-wing blog doesn’t seem to raise any eyebrows among conservative bloggers.
Please feel free to add links to any conservative blogs you find that cover this story, but I suspect they will be (very) few and far between.
Newmania, it does seem bizarre. Publishing something which is absolutely true but someone wanted to keep hidden is not libellous, so I don’t see what grounds they could mount a legal challenge on.
Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘conservative bloggers’. Am I one? Ross, of Unenlightened Commentary? Mr Eugenides?
We all covered it. Iain Dale surely is and he blogged on it.
But no, from the likes of ‘ConservativeHome’, silence. And yes, that’s disappointing…
Guido’s just got it. I think he counts as ‘conservative’..?
No idea if Guido is a conservative, but glad he caught up.
Perhaps we should compare the Top 50 Conservative bloggers in the list being compiled by Total Politics and see how many covered it? That would be interesting and I am very confident (although slightly ashamed) that my point will be totally vindicated.
“Perhaps we should compare the Top 50 Conservative bloggers in the list being compiled by Total Politics and see how many covered it?”
Ah, now there’s a plan. It’ll be interesting to see…
To be honest I find the hatred and bile that pours out of the contributors to Harry’s Place annoying and I was more than happy to see the back of it.
Unfortunately some bleeding heart liberals have seen it as their duty to give one of the vilest zionist propaganda sites a new home.
Annoying it may be, but how would you feel if it was your website or a website you liked that was taken out of action?
‘Hatred and bile’…? I’ve read ‘Harry’s Place’ for year, and yes, the comments can get heated. But not to that extent!
Oh, wait: it’s apparently ‘one of the vilest zionist propaganda sites’, now, is it?
That tells me all I need to know. But not about ‘Harry’s Place’….
NeoConstant has devised a handy little banner that can be added to any post in support, and I’ve duly added it to mine.
I don’t think it is a political issue, in that there is no government involved in ’suppressing’ what Harry’s Place are writing – it’s a private dispute between two citizens (or organisations) and a service company.
If Harry’s Place don’t like using a server who reserve the right to cut them off if they see fit, they can move to a different ISP (and I believe they have done) who is more willing to host their site. Thus, the free market sorts out the issue without the need for intervention.
Flip the issue on its head: are you saying you want to restrict the right of ISPs to decide what kind of content they allow to reside on their privately owned servers? Are you saying that a web host who doesn’t allow pornographic material is wrong? Should the government force ISPs to carry content that they find objectionable or worrisome?
It’s not a political issue – it’s for Harry’s Place to switch to a server they find more useful and possibly sue this idiot of a university lecturer for causing them to lose business. Case Closed.
The service provider in this case isn’t the ISP – it’s the provider of the DNS – but yes, you are right, no government is suppressing ‘Harry’s Place’.
However, I think it is a political issue, in that it’s the prevailing legal climate in this country that makes ISPs, hosts and DNS providers run scared of these tactics. It needs to be changed, and fast.
All hail Positive Internet, who refused to give in to this tactic, and reinstated ‘Harry’s Place’ very quickly.
I agree with JuliaM (don’t get used to it, it’s probably never going to happen again). I can’t believe some people’s flippancy on the issue. These people are quite plainly trying to bully Harry’s Place into submission, just as with Behtzi, George Galloway’s sickening comments about Salman Rushdie, and the rest of the shameful litany.
None of my blogs have ever been much good or had any readers, but I’m still a blogger, and an attack on Harry’s Place is an attack us all. We have to face down the litigious culture, the assault on free speech, and the dismaying and bizarre rise of religion all at once.
Ministry Of Truth has written some very strong posts on the matter.
I’m sorry that you feel so let down by my spineless act of not posting on this subject.
Feel free to remove my blog from your blogroll.
Julia and Asquith have absolutely hit the nail on the head.
We have a culture where people feel afraid – afraid of lawsuits, afraid of corporate bullies – surely we have to ask why this is? Why do our laws not make people feel protected when it comes to free speech? Why do people, when given the choice of fight or flight, choose flight without hesitation (or get forced into fleeing)?
Steve, despite your sarcasm I sincerely hope that a good blogger like you never finds yourself in the same situation as Harry’s Place. Like I’ve been saying all along, it’s all well and good not giving a toss now but I wonder how you’d feel if you wrote something strong-worded or aggressive on climate change (one of your pet peeves), only to have your website shut down because someone you criticised took offence to what you wrote? Think about it.
Yes, it should be driven home to “ordinary” bloggers that, basically, they’re next.
The general public support 42 days because they think only wogs are going to be affected. They think people like them won’t suffer from ID cards. We need to show all the problems with government databases, such as the loss of the child benefit discs, and the interference of the state, not only in strict laws, but in the culture of jobsworths (bearing in mind that there are more than enough private-sector jobsworths, and the “I’m just doing my job, complain to head office” culture has permeated society almost totally).
The average blogger will wake up one day and the average citizen some time afterwards. But will it be too late?
Comment deleted for breaking Rules Of This Blog
“We need to show all the problems with government databases, such as the loss of the child benefit discs, and the interference of the state, not only in strict laws, but in the culture of jobsworths…”
I’m in agreement with asquith! (might not happen again…
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