The Attorney General’s application to have her claim for an injunction against the BBC heard in private was refused on 22 February 2022. The application relates to a programme about an alleged MI5 agent. The hearing is listed for 1 and 2 March 2022. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Month: February 2022 (Page 1 of 3)
We all see the favours the corporate newspapers do for the Conservatives because they are written in large type every day – distractions, distortions, plain lies and cynical omissions. While pumping out propaganda in print and online, they can be seen to be routinely shielding chosen ministers from criticism. Continue reading
Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world. It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments in the field. Continue reading
Strand 4 involves the creation of new and reformed criminal offences that would apply directly to users, in parallel with the government’s proposals for an online duty of care, the Law Commission has been conducting two projects looking at the criminal law as it affects online and other communications: Modernising Communications Offences (Law Com No 399, 21 July 2021); Hate Crime Laws (LawCom No 402, 7 December 2021). Continue reading
The most heavily debated aspect of the government’s proposals has been, Strand 2, the ‘legal but harmful content’ duty. In the draft Bill this comes in two versions: a substantive duty to mitigate user content harmful to children; and a transparency duty in relation to user content harmful to adults. That, at any rate, appears to be the government’s political intention. As drafted, the Bill could be read as going further and imposing a substantive ‘content harmful to adults’ duty (something that at least some of the Committees want the legislation explicitly to do). Continue reading
The headline at the top of the front page of the London Times read: ‘Teachers Told to Avoid the ‘Biased’ Views of BLM and Stonewall’. And the report beneath began with the sentence: “Teachers must avoid using material from campaigning organisations such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Stonewall that may have ‘partisan political views’, Government guidance on impartiality states.” Continue reading
It is time – in fact it is overdue – to take stock of the increasingly imminent Online Safety Bill. The two months before and after Christmas saw a burst of activity: Reports from the Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the draft Bill, from the Commons DCMS Committee on the ‘Legal but Harmful’ issue, and from the House of Commons Petitions Committee on Tackling Online Abuse. Continue reading
This short blog post considers only one – so far largely disregarded – aspect of the decision of the Supreme Court in Lloyd v Google LLC – its rejection of the argument that since Article 8 ECHR underlies both data protection and the tort of misuse of private information (MPI), the two actions should provide the same level of protection for private information. Continue reading
On 16 February 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in ZXC v Bloomberg [2022] UKSC 5. The judgement confirms that anonymity should be granted to those under criminal investigation until they are charged; the assumption that an investigation is private information should be taken as the “legitimate starting point” [74]. Article 10 does not provide a universal justification for inflicting serious, and often unjustified, damage on the reputations of suspects. Continue reading
Two months ago the branch of the Murdoch empire that publishes the Sun paid substantial damages to Sienna Miller after she sued the newspaper for hacking her phone and other forms of illegal intrusion. Continue reading
Recent Judgments
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