There are been a number of recent developments around the issue of freedom of speech that should be noted. First off was the victory against a secret injunction against the media by oil traders Trafigura. The UK press could not report on any of the details of the case - including the company in question due to legal pressure. In the past, such an issue would have been fought in the courts outside of the view of the public - but these are the networked days - and the battle was fought in public as other non-UK news outlets reported on the issue and commenters put two and two together to figure out who was involved. Documents appeared on Wikileaks and a twitter campaign started to bring public pressure on the company in question. It worked and the case was never fought in the courts, Trafigura having lost in the court of public opinion and the Streisand Effect propelling the story to ever greater heights. It would seem the 1688 law being used to stifle reporting was both a legal and technical anachronism. Peer pressure worked this time. Media blogger Jeff Jarvis went as far as to claim:
In the UK, we are watching the waning days of censorship.
The second point of note is that Wikileaks has decided, in the absence of strong legal support from the US government for laws to protect journalists - that it will;
With the US federal gov’t continually watering down and limiting any attempt at a federal shield law to help protect journalists from being pressured into revealing their sources, it looks like the site Wikileaks wants to help. It’s trying to set up a system, whereby a source can leak information directly to a journalist for a period of time, before Wikileaks goes public with the info.
The key point here is that the chain of information is being peer-managed. Where the state wont or can’t provide; the peer-network will. By passing information into the public realm via peers, it can offset the pressure on the journalist in question. This is not dissimilar to sites like WhatDoTheyKnow.com, a UK based site where people can post Freedom of Information requests. Via this site people can both avoid duplicating work on requests and share what they have found with others. Another interesting development in the peer-ing of information management.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Old democracies kidnapped freedom of speech: http://inspirationwriting.blogspot.com/2009/10/old-democracies-kidnapped-freedom-of.html