Re: Internet and defamation laws

From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Sun Feb 02 2003 - 18:09:42 MST


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 2:23 PM
Subject: RE: Internet and defamation laws

> John Clark writes
>
> > "Brett Paatsch" <paatschb@ocean.com.au> Wrote:
> >
> > > Free speech can sometimes be cheap speech.
> >
> > It usually is, but so what? If I say bad things about you it will only
be
> > really damaging to you if my reputation is good. If I have a history of
> > making similar charges that turned out to be untrue anything I say will
just
> > be shrugged off. I think a free market of ideas should determine what is
> > true and what is not, the idea of some an official body making such a
decree
> > gives me the creeps.
>
> While I agree, I think that it would be most enlightening to know
> more about the history of libel and slander laws.

Me too. I did quite a bit of backgrounding on defamation at one point
by I've forgotten most of the details of what I learnt. When I get a chance
I'll check out the history a bit more and if it seems interesting I'll post
it.

> I can presently
> think of only two possibilities.
>
> (1) Certain powerful individuals were embarrassed by what their
> political opponents were able to reveal about them, and wanted
> them shut up permanently. So these individuals got behind laws
> to forcibly suppress denunciations against them.

I think there is some truth in this but its not the whole picture. I don't
think contemporary Western democracies are configured in such a
way that a relatively few people can seriously threaten free speech.
Free speech has too many chamipons (journalists, civil lib types).
 It can take a few bruises and scrapes here and there but I don't think
it is seriously in danger of being lost as a general principle. Too many
capable and interested people make use of and defend it. In
democracies certain sorts of power can concentrate in the hands of a
relative few but I don't think the power to censor others in a serious
way is one of those sorts of powers. Could be wrong though certainly
free speech in Nazi Germany would have been somewhat limited but
whether free speech or democracy was curtailed first I've not really
thought through.

>
> (2) The monopoly of information---i.e. newspapers---was so severe
> that it was thought by many prudent legislators that such power
> needed restraint. Otherwise, at certain key moments those newspapers
> had the power to critically damage a candidate.

Newspapers, especially large circulation papers in the hands of private
owners must have had an impact on free speech at some stages when
the technology was rolling out that was greater than at earlier times.

One vote each in a democracy still pretty much holds. But the real
point is that we have disproportionate power to influence each others
voting habits and opinions. A person with a private newspaper with
a high circulation clearly has a means of influencing and defaming
(especially in the absence of defamation laws) disproportionate
to other citizen voters. Without defamation laws it would seem that
people would need to have quite deep pockets for counter
propaganda in newspapers if they didn't own a newspaper of their
own. I'd reckon Adam Smith would hardly be impressed with this
as a model of economic efficiency, when defamation laws, sensibly
construed allow for better (more effective less wasteful) allocations
of societies resources.

Brett



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