Pirate Party Australia is concerned at the recent spike in litigation aimed against communication service providers, and calls for the Australian Parliament to grant protection for social media service providers and users that guarantees the full sanctuary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in regard to freedom of opinion and expression.
Recently, Melbourne man Joshua Meggitt sued celebrity Marieke Hardy for defamation after she wrongly accused him to be the operator of a hate blog dedicated to her via social media platform Twitter. Despite an out-of-court settlement, Meggitt is now suing Twitter for ‘publishing’ Hardy’s claim, as well as for the subsequent 60,000 retweets[1].
Pirate Party Australia argues that Twitter is not a publisher, but instead is a service provider that empowers the public to self-publish their news, thoughts and opinions to the world. Australian lawmakers continue to live in the past, failing to distinguish between a newspaper that is subject to editorial control, and a mass communications medium that enables communication between citizens worldwide without selection, judgement or endorsement.
“Application of pre-Information Age controls and laws to social media is absurd and a failure of policy. It demonstrates an inability to update laws and protections for modern times and is in-line with failures such as Conroy’s censorship scheme, filesharing persecution and treaties that betray citizens to foreign interests,” said Mozart Palmer, spokesperson for Pirate Party Australia. “The egalitarian nature of Twitter – and the internet in general – is what makes it truly great as a tool for the empowerment of the individual.”
Defamation laws can have a chilling effect, as demonstrated by the United Kingdom’s libel tourism industry; the Australian government has an unambiguous duty to protect free speech irrespective of the medium, including both social media users and service providers. The failure to distinguish between a social media service provider and a publisher indicates a very serious error of judgement and policy.
“When a user selects to tweet their message, they are publishing it using the service Twitter provides. The camera does not take the picture unless someone pushes the button, so should the manufacturer be responsible for how their cameras are used?” Palmer asked. “Enabling communication is not itself an act of endorsement, particularly where the communication is made possible without judgement or selection, as is done by social media providers such as Livejournal, Blogspot, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and a myriad of others.”
Pirate Party Australia believes the services provided by these companies are of an incalculable value to civil society and our civilisation is made stronger, not by the responsiveness to complaints and lawsuits, but by resisting such attacks on free speech and enabling open communications. Citizens and corporations participating in online social spaces are essential to modern civilisation and protecting them against opportunistic or predatory assaults is the duty of our representatives. We must, at all costs, avoid outcomes such as Thailand’s censorship of Twitter or China’s persecution of online spaces and extortion of social media and internet activities, both private and commercial.
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a19