Official: Facebook is a blog
The Age yesterday reported that “blog” rants on Facebook about an alleged arsonist had been pulled down. (Yes, Facebook isn’t a blog but for once heritage media’s failure to understand these things isn’t the point.)
The posts in question had threatened an alleged #bushfires arsonist. Threatening people is illegal of course but there is also the potential contempt of court by anyone reporting on those who have been charged with a criminal offence but whose trials have not concluded. (Margaret Simons wrote on sub judice in Crikey earlier this month)
Laurel Papworth, social network strategist, vs David Galbally, TV QC
This morning Laurel Papworth tried to school the massed forces of Mike Munro, Melissa “What’s the Internet?” Doyle, and David Galbally, a QC from television. M, M and D were suggesting on Sunrise that Facebook should assume complete responsibility for everything its users write. Laurel was playing the part of Reason. After all, do we blame the telcos when mobile phones are used to set off bombs?
The wrong question
They were (not unusually) asking Laurel the wrong question. Facebook will, like any other company, hop to when presented with the right notification. And that shouldn’t trouble lawyers too much — just as they get paid to issue cease-and-desist notices in intellectual property cases, they’ll get fees to patrol Facebook and everyone will be happy.
The right question
The right question is: What can we expect of ordinary users now they are publishers? Giving away the address of an alleged criminal caught in the judicial process is one thing in the pub — although no less illegal, I’d venture — but it’s quite another screaming it to a potential audience of millions, as was being done on Facebook.
The answer: STFU
Laurel tweeted after the interview:
“When the cameras were off, Mel and Mike said to me “we (journalists) can’t do it, so you can’t”. When is news ‘News’ & when is it ”chat’?”
And Melissa and Mike are right about that.* We, the people, do not have the right to do more than journalists do. If we as a society believe reporting certain information about a crime will affect the fairness of any trial, we have to shut up about it. And that “we” can’t just be heritage media. This blog post could turn up in anyone’s Google search so why should I be held to different standards than the Sydney Morning Herald? I’m not held to different standards when it comes to defamation or other laws.
If, on the other hand, we’re in favour of unrestrained comment at any point in the judicial process, then we must change the law through our elected representatives, not call the courts and officers of the law stupid because they try to enforce the law we asked for. (But, to echo my earlier point, fair play to anyone calling them stupid for thinking Facebook can filter its millions of users without help.)
The silver lining
In the meantime, let’s see this for what it is: more mainstream recognition of social media and networks as the powerful forces for organisation and dissemination that they are. In making that recognition, the establishment is showing us the respect and — in some cases — contempt we deserve. There are plenty of “new” media mavens who bemoan the earlier lack of recognition and who talk up the fact that Twitter is now first on the scene of many major stories. Well, here are the media QCs of Queensland and the hosts of Sunrise delivering your recognition: “new” media shapes public perception and with great power comes great responsibility (or something less pompous than that but you know what I mean).
Laurel vs David on Sunrise (YouTube video)
*Although whichever of Laurel or Melissa is calling Melissa a journalist is most definitely wrong.
Couldn’t agree with you more regarding what you suggest is ‘the right question’. The line between blogging and journalism continues to blur and these cases of jurisdiction and media supressions are no doubt going to make their presence known in the blogosphere before too long.
“Blogging the Arsonist” http://www.netregistry.com.au/blog/?p=99
Colour me confuzzled – would the alleged arsonist’s name have gotten out into the ‘Facebook audience’ if traditional/heritage media hadn’t disseminated it in the first place?
I agree, too. It’s hard to see how we can vaunt, as we social computing-types do, the rise of the citizen journalist without expecting the citizen journalist to respect the laws that govern the other sort. You can’t incite a lynching and claim it was merely “conversation” in the “community” when it’s accessible to a couple of million torch-bearing villagers.
I feel a citizen journalist blog post coming on. Hold the presses!
Always happy to see freedom of speech but your comment above that Melissa Doyle is not a journalist is factually incorrect. She graduated from Charles Sturt Bathurst with a degree in Broadcast Journalism. Can i respectfully suggest you correct the record and refrain from either personal attacks or potentially slanderous remarks. thank you.
Interesting perspective, here’s mine:
http://mseyfang.edublogs.org/2009/02/18/morning-television-got-me-thinking-about-social-media-legal-reform-vigilante-groups-and-the-victorian-bushfires/
Would you be interested in continuing the discussion on my podcast this afternoon?
2.30pm Adelaide time
Fang – Mike Seyfang
“calling Melissa a journalist is most definitely wrong” – She is both a presenter and a journalist.
“David Galbally, a QC from television” – He is a QC. Can’t he simply be recognised for his professional qualifications and achievements? It seems like you want to belittle him, too, for having a part in mainstream media.
Can you imagine the social media outrage if they’d introduced Laurel as a “Blogger and online video game (WoW) player”?
Your (anonymous/uncredited?) blog entry was a nice attempt at summarising the debate but was tainted, unfortunately, with thinly-veiled personal attacks on some of those involved. And some wonder why the gap between traditional and new media is still so wide.
Derek
Mike, thank you for your invitation but I saw it too late and wasn’t in any event free. I hope the podcast went well and please feel free to leave a link.
Derek, the blog entry wasn’t anonymous or uncredited. This particular template doesn’t show the author, you have to go to the RSS feed, which I admit is a weakness we might have to look into.
Derek and John, I think it depends entirely on your definition of journalist whether Melissa Doyle qualifies. We could debate it for some time, throwing dictionaries and common use at each other but it wouldn’t further this particular debate. Is every person who has a journalism degree from Charles Sturt a journalist regardless of what they’ve gone on to do. Perhaps a special episode of “Where Are They Now?” would clear that up.
In terms of “correcting the record”: if you consider hosting “Sunrise” to be journalism then it is quite clear from the original post what she does.
What you both read as thinly-veiled attacks were not veiled attacks in any meaningful sense of the words but clear expressions of a view on Doyle and Galbally’s qualifications for this debate. They were “personal” references only in that any discussion of an individual’s qualifications would have to be personal to that individual.
Galbally might be second only to his father in eminence as a criminal QC but a search on Google (Bible to the Web 2.0 crowd) showed him primarily as a paid speaker and TV commentator (”Sunrise”, for instance) and entertainer (”The Einstein Factor”). His qualifications in criminal law — QC — were mentioned on the show but neither “Sunrise” nor any of the websites I saw offered anything as to his qualifications for a question like this. His comments about what Facebook could and should do suggested an answer.
It wouldn’t be a criminal matter but it would be interesting to hear Galbally’s view on whether suggesting someone wasn’t a journalist could be considered libellous. I know many people who would consider it defamatory to be called a journalist. Ho ho.
Couple of points that hit me when I watched the video. We should distinguish between content that was published before the suppression order, and content that came after. And the law needs to work out just what ‘publish’ means in an online context.
The alleged arsonist published his own facebook profile. Voluntarily. Laurel made the point but no one listened. The law continues to struggle to define ‘publish’ in many areas (eg defamation as well), and in many cases it is different depending on the circumstances. If the SMH had done a profile piece on someone before such an order, would they be expected to go out into the community, find every copy of the paper and pulp it?
The issue is that the information sits there, innocuous enough when the person in question wasn’t before the court, but now thumping slap bang into his/her legal right to a ‘fair trial’. The law seems to consider that its continued existence is re-publication, every day it is there.
So it tries to re-define who the ‘publisher’ is, so someone can be made to take responsibility for it.
Now the fair trial issue doesn’t go away. Jurers today are online, and it is an issue to find 12 of them without a pre-conception of the person before the court case. This happens anyway (often courtesy of Derryn Hinch) so the system is in no way perfect. But jurors will draw inferences about a person which will impact how they interpret facts. We all filter information automatically – that’s fine unless the potential for getting it wrong is someone heading off to Long Bay. Lindy Chamberlain’s case is the classic trial by pre-conception example, and the media did a fine job as part of the prosecution team.
The ‘content after order’ thing is a different issue. Once I’m in court (without my trusty Mac), I don’t have the right of reply. I can’t even defend myself. The point here is that unless you are in the court listening to the evidence your opinion on that person’s guilt or innocence is completely irrelevant. I probably sound like I’m stuck on the Chamberlain case, but the media reported less than half of what was presented in court. I do think we need to be careful that ‘trial by media’ doesn’t become ‘trial by new media’.
Some rules are needed, but only after we’ve redefined roles and responsibilities. Old media law doesn’t work in new media, and Galbally et al lose all credibility for not acknowledging this.
Leanne, many of my own thoughts are in the trackback above your comment.
I would add that I agree with Kimota, who is posting on Laurel Papworth’s blog to the effect that the fact that its hard shouldn’t mean we won’t try to enforce the law. That the mob now has more powerful means of communicating and organising, doesn’t make it all right. But, as you say, Galbally does himself no favours by suggesting Facebook can stop this any more than Telstra Stadium’s management can control what conversations happen in there.
Addendum: I should have added that I have the benefit of knowing that John above is John Dunlop of Melissa Doyle Management, which I know because he emailed the Silicon Federation directly to ask that we read his comment and respond. Done.
Jack…Jack…Jack…you wrote a reasonably good post but then you diminish it with your unnecessary and typically lightweight bitchin’ about other people’s fancy qualifications. Sounds to me like you’ve got that big furry chimp on your back matey.
Get this if you can, OK? He’s a QC and she’s a journo. That’s it.
What fun this is all turning out to be. I’ve been blogging about it myself and following Laurel’s blog but this thread is where the goodtimes are. Like the best one-hour TV drama is had two plots: a serious question (Facebook lynch mobs) with a humorous sub-plot (is Melissa Doyle a journalist).
As a sometime journalist with a law degree, I’m not awed by either fancy qualification. I think Jack’s post clearly spells out Galbally’s qualification: he’s a criminal QC who also hires himself out as a TV entertainer. Brain surgeons also have impressive qualifications but would we wheel one out on national TV because he put his hand up in class to suggest cutting Facebook off in Victoria?
Being a QC, Galbally must have called his fair share of experts to testify and he must of course be careful to ask the right questions. And this debate is all about asking the right question. Here’s mine, QC Lover: if a QC had a trial involving Facebook or the internet, would he call Galbally as an expert witness?
Galbally wasn’t on Sunrise because someone made an informed decision that he’s an expert. Too often you become an expert simply by clever marketing and saying it often enough so everyone believes you.
Galbally is good TV fodder because he can talk, he knows how to ram a point home (whether it’s the right one or not), and he provided the conflict that makes ratings (irresponsible web users). He was in control of the interview. Unfortunately the lack of a strong response to him from all parties just makes him look right.
Unfortunately – I don’t think Laurels argument that saying something on Facebook is the same as saying something in the Pub is quite right.. sure its they could be both considered conversations.. however on Facebook its a permanent record unless of course you delete it. She was right on the money about whether its Facebooks problem or not… its not – its the users.