The supposed libel case George Galloway has mounted against David Toube for a comment he left at Socialist Unity has now dragged the latter in:
Many readers will be aware that George Galloway and Kevin Ovenden are each seeking redress from David Toube of Harry’s Place for a libellous comment made by David on this blog back in December.
Last Wednesday I received a letter from Mr Toube’s solicitors saying that should either or both of these libel actions proceed then David Toube will seek to join me as a third-party (part 20) defendant and will seek full indemnity from me in respect of all costs and other liabilities that Mr Toube incurs under the Civil Liability (contribution) Act 1978.
In essence, despite all his huffing and puffing about free speech, David Toube has the chutzpah to publish comments on this blog, and then when faced with the consequences, is seeking to hold me legally responsible for his own actions.
In fact I do consider that the comment made by David T was libellous, and I sought to mitigate that libel by refuting the inaccurate content in subsequent comments on the same thread. This blog does not operate pre-publication moderation, so David Toube’ comment appeared and was read by hundreds of people without any participation whatsoever by the administraors of Socialist Unity blog.
If David Toube’s legal argument is successful, it will mean the end of blogging as we know it, as the burden of responsibility for libel will be shifted to the registered proprietors of blogs, and people posting libellous comments will seek to hide behind the blog owners to avoid legal responsibility.
Unfortunately for Andy, his assumptions here are slightly wrong. The way he puts it, he seems to think that David Toube’s action to drag Socialist Union into this suit is wrong, as if without this action he couldn’t be hold liable for David’s alleged libelous comment. However, this is not true. Had Galloway wanted to, he could’ve held Socialist Unity responsible from the start. Now I’m not a lawyer, so treat the following with all due skepticism.
There’s a semi-famous libel case called Godrey vs Demon Internet 1999 which already gives that chilling effect that Andy worries about. In that case Demon was held responsible for an Usenet post not even posted but propagated through their servers and the judge found that the “common carrier” defence Demon mounted (i.e. you can’t hold the post office responsible for a libelous letter) wasn’t adequate.
Which means that any blog with comments can probably be hold responsible for its commenters already, more so if said blog already screens comments, as Socialist Unity does, as it has banned several commenters for being disruptive (including yours truly). For Andy therefore to think he has no part in this when he led the allegedly libelous comment stand, when he has deleted other comments (including ones for possible libelous intent) and even banned people, is somewhat premature. The idea is that the more you filter, the more you become like a publisher, hence responsible for the content of the comments you allow, whether you agree with them or not. As such, a blog can therefore have a duty of care to remove comments that are held to be libelous at the very least when they are pointed out to them, or face the consequences in court.
At the time the judgement in Godfrey vs Demon 1999 was given there was somewhat of a panic about what this meant in practical terms. Should all Usenet post be pre-vetted, or would Usenet be dropped by internet providers as not worth the trouble? The upshot was that many ISPs started removing posts as soon as they got complaints about them, which is a course also open to blogs. This may have a chilling effect, in that malicious people could complain about reasonable comments then removed by blog owners fearful of costly ligitation, but I’m not sure how much of an effect it has had so far…
Now personally I think Galloway has had some grounds to complaint about David’s original comment, but think he should have complained to Andy/Socialist Unity directly, as David himself couldn’t remove the comment anyway, only ask SU to do so for him. The more so considering the ties Socialist Unity has to Respect and Galloway anyway.
