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Links: Euro-blogging & the Right to Reply
Posted by Tara Swaminatha on Monday, June 16 @ 10:23:18 EDT Civil Liberties
An article on CNET today discusses an almost-final proposal currently before the Council of Europe. The proposal establishes a "right to reply" for anyone criticized online. Web sites - both news sites and individually controlled sites, moderated mailing lists and even blogs could be required to give subjects of criticism the opportunity and ability to reply.
 
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Re: Euro-blogging & the Right to Reply (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, June 16 @ 21:02:50 EDT
The proposal link 404s for me, so I can't check myself,
but does this limit the size of the reply? I've seen the sorts
of things Usenet kooks can take offense at, and the huge
volume of some of their complaints.


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lawmeme (Score: 1)
by mako on Tuesday, June 17 @ 05:38:40 EDT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://yukidoke.org/~mako/
WOO HOO! Lawmeme isn't dead. :)


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A reply from Europe (Score: 1)
by AlexanderS on Tuesday, June 17 @ 12:09:25 EDT
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I have written a reply to his CNET article [news.com.com], but Declan has not published it on the Politech list [www.politechbot.com] (yet):

Lo and behold -- this "right to reply" for Internet media has been part of German law since 1997, and neither the German blogosphere nor political discussion on the Internet seem to have taken much notice, let alone damage.

Reading Declan's article, it looks like every critic is entitled to a reply. Since Declan is citing the German example, let me assure you that this is not the case here. In Germany, media law is subject to state (Laender) legislation, but all state media laws contain the so-called "Gegendarstellungsrecht": It's not a right to continue a discussion or to raise counterarguments, but a right to publish a factual correction. It is restricted to statements of facts and to individually and substantively affected persons.

The German Interstate Treaty on Media Services (which applies to Internet media) explicitly rules out such factual corrections

  • if the concerned person has no legitimate interest in the counterrepresentation
  • if the size of the counterrepresentation is disproportionate to the statement of fact objected to
  • if the counterrepresentation is not limited to factual declarations or is punishable by law or
  • the counterrepresentation does not arrive in time

( German text of the law [www.iid.de])

This law does not apply to chatrooms, newsgroups and the like; in German law, they are teleservices, not media services -- no counterrepresentation.

Such counterrepresentations in traditional media (newspapers, magazines, TV programs) are (rather rare) exceptions and usually only contain few lines of text, citing the original and factual corrections. In some of the Laender, the magazine is entitled to an additional statement "We stick with our reporting" if they choose to do so.

To emphasize it once more: This is not like the Politech mailing list policy "audiatur et altera pars", inviting the other party to offer their point of view. If you criticize Jack Valenti's ideas, he has no right to reply. If you claim that Valenti [www.mpaa.org] wasn't in the Kennedy motorcade when JFK was shot, Valenti may have the right to state that he actually was (if it's important enough in the relevant context to warrant a counterrepresentation at all). Comparing these rules with the U.S. Communications Decency Act in my opinion misses the point: This is not a government rule on content, but a citizen's right to get factual corrections printed.

Unfortunately, the links to the working drafts of the Council of Europe documents in Declan's article are not working for me at the moment, so it's impossible to tell whether this is another recommendation on factual correction or something different. Whether this is adopted is not up to "an unelected bureaucrat's judgment", but to the national parliaments. Whether a counterrepresentation is required in a specific case is not up to the Council of Europe either, but to a judge.

No reason for a mass emigration of Eurobloggers to the USA...


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