The claim that the US has freer speech and a freer press than the UK and the rest of Europe is a common and annoying myth.
Mark Humphrys is a useful, if slightly unfair, case study here. He bashes Reporters Sans Frontieres for unspecified left-wing bias, because their rankings don’t fit with his belief that "America has the freest, most dynamic media in the world". He doesn’t try to quibble with their rigorous methodology; that’s not relevant to the argument, because he *knows* that America is freer.
Since I don’t have RSF’s survey resources at my disposal, I assess the dynamicism and freedom of the US and UK presses by, err, reading them. On this basis, I’d find it rather hard to take seriously anyone who claimed the US press was the most "dynamic". Where are the US equivalents of the Guardian? The Indy? The Daily Mail? The Mirror? The Economist? There are none; no mainstream US organ would dare adopt an equivalent tone to any of the papers above. While the First Amendment is a great thing and the UK libel laws are appalling, a British journalist has infinitely more freedom in practice than an American journalist.
Mr Humphrys also points out that he hosts his website in America because he’s "too nervous to have this website in Europe". Scary stuff, since I’m currently in the process of moving SBBS from a US to UK host. If the site disappears, it’s not because I’ve buggered the software up in the transfer: it’s because the Thought Gestapo have thrown me into a reeducation camp.
Don’t you mean the First Amendment, the one with the clause about free speech? (The Fifth is the one about not incriminating yourself.)
They have their equivalent, it’s just that no one takes them nearly as seriously.
"I am too nervous to have this website in Europe."
It’s perfectly safe as long as you use enough tin foil.
MP: Oops. I guess I need that re-education camp.
TB: No; while obviously the US has supermarket tabloids, the combination of tabloid-shock-horror and serious investigative reporting on non-celebrity subjects in the UK tabloid press is rather different.
The US does have far freer speech than the UK and Europe. The fact that most of their media choose not to exercise their rights is interesting and unfortunate. I have no idea what RSF were reporting on, but, if they were just looking at the mainstream media in the US, they’d be right to say that US reporters don’t behave as if they have freedom of speech. But it’s self-censorship, not government censorship, and they’d be wrong not to mention that. Where the First Amendment and the UK’s libel laws really come into their own is when applied to the speech of individuals, not the media.
Humphreys is wrong if he thinks moving to a US server is any help. I believe it’s already been made clear by the government that writing in the UK means you’re covered by the UK’s laws, regardless of where the server is held.
Humphreys is wrong if he thinks moving to a US server is any help. I believe it’s already been made clear by the government that writing in the UK means you’re covered by the UK’s laws, regardless of where the server is held.
Humphrys is writing in Ireland rather than the UK.
Oops. Yes, good point. Sorry.
I suspect that Eire’s courts will take the same attitude as the UK’s, but that’s based on pessimism rather than precedent.
I suspect that Eire’s courts
<Grinds teeth>
I’m not up on the precise details of Irish law on the subject, but I suspect that they would indeed take that viewpoint. The Irish legal system incorporates a lot of common law and pre-1922 legislation anyway, and they will often use UK court decisions as forming precedent where available.
they will often use UK court decisions as forming precedent where available.
Sorry – the last word should have been "appropriate", i.e. if the decision was based on common or directly analogous legislation.