Category: Free Speech

A Finnish teacher has won a defamation action against his 15-year-old student, who posted an injurious video on YouTube. The video was filmed at a school party and depicted the teacher singing (poorly, one presumes). On YouTube, the video description read ‘Karaoke of the mental hospital’. Whether this in itself would be defamatory in a… Read more →

The United Kingdom High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division recently handed down its decision in Bunt v Tilley, holding that an internet service provider (‘ISP’) cannot be held liable purely by virtue of the fact that it plays host to defamatory content: [36] In all the circumstances I am quite prepared to hold that… Read more →

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has issued a noteworthy Internet hate decision that focuses on the applicability of the Human Rights Act to Internet hate materials. The Tribunal ordered fines against several individuals for their role in maintaining several hate websites and newsletters. Meanwhile, Australian authorities have acted against a white supremacist group conducting its… Read more →

The caricature saga continues, with a Russian government agency announcing plans to shut down Bankfax, a popular online news website. The announcement comes after an anonymous reader posted the now-famous caricature on the Bankfax forum along with a number of inflammatory remarks. The agency responsible for the decision is the Siberian branch of the Federal… Read more →

From Mercury News: ‘China’s premier Tuesday offered a defense of his nation’s Internet censorship and exhorted private companies to “exercise more self-discipline” if they want to operate in the huge market here. Premier Wen Jiabao, meeting the press in a once-a-year news conference, said sites available to China’s 111 million Internet users “should be able… Read more →

In marked contrast to my previous post, several United States medical practitioners have pursued defamation claims against former patients, who had criticised their doctors’ lack of skill and proficiency on public websites: Dr Boothe, who practices in the Dallas area, filed lawsuits in a state court in Collin County, Texas, in January against the disgruntled… Read more →

Ars Technica reports on the finding of a Californian court that Apple failed to conduct due diligence when issuing subpoeanas to the operators of rumour websites earlier this year. In failing to conduct an in-house check for the cause of the document leak, attempting to compel disclosure from journalists was unjustified, the Court said: Documents… Read more →

‘Reuters reports on China’s efforts to censor its latest Internet-born star, a young woman known as Furong Jiejie (‘Sister Furong’). She is seen as a pioneer pushing the boundaries of traditional media controls, but in the process has become a target of government censors. In late July, authorities told the country’s top weblog host to… Read more →

Kerry Packer yesterday lost a defamation case against rival media group John Fairfax Pty Ltd. Packer claimed that a satirical caption appearing in The Sydney Morning Herald on 16 December, 1999 construed him as ‘a power-crazed greedy man.’ Unsurprisingly, Fairfax-owned newspaper The Age was quick to carry the story. The alleged defamatory material was the… Read more →