Bloggers (and others) getting the legal recognition they deserve over #bushfires

Jack Herrington — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:28:27 +0000

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.

Twitter panned by the civic-minded. Supposedly.

Jack Herrington — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:27:01 +0000

Twitter updates to the #bushfires hashtag

Where do you start with this breathtaking, unattributed statement of “fact” from Emma Young in yesterday’s SMH:

Facebook, Twitter, My Space and their offshoots have a bad reputation. People communicate but they don’t talk, they exchange words without a face and can function as part of a network without ever stepping outside their house. Because of this optional distance, social networking sites like Facebook are panned by the civic-minded for a lack of humanity and authenticity.

Young’s feeble thrust is that the Victorian bushfires have at last given social networks a chance to prove to right-thinking people that they’re capable of closing distance. The whole thing is nonsense of course: social networking has nothing to prove to Young’s invented civic-minded think tank.

We “new” media types are too easily goaded by heritage media but they do represent the thinking of a chunk of the population and supply its “information”. However, for those who have stumbled on this cutting-edge ( ) blog, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate what Twitter (and other networks) have done in gathering and spreading information about the Victorian bushfires.

The #bushfires and #vicfires hashtags on Twitter bring together many of the tweets about the bushfires, enabling people who don’t usually see each other’s updates to share information. So many tweets, in fact, that a third hashtag emerged, #firecomments, for people just wanting to talk about the fires rather than share facts.

Certainly there’s a proportion of look-at-me emoting, as Stilgherrian describes in Crikey. But there is a genuine need to share the emotions: it’s part of the process, too. Even those of us who aren’t directly impacted are affected and these networks are our communities so they’re the places where we would share what we’re feeling.

Twitter is also catering for the people who want to do more than talk and relay information. A user named Dean created the CFA-Updates account, for instance, which broadcasts updates from the CFA website, reducing load on the site (the CFA has asked people to stay off its website, if they can help it). And ABC Melbourne has won praise for its Twitter feed (@774Melbourne), which is directing offers of help to where they are needed, many of them from people who wouldn’t have access to listen to the same information on the station.

The role that Twitter and services like it might play in another major disaster is something that should be analysed when the crisis is over. The internet was built to ensure that information could still be circulated when systems were under attack, routing round points of failure. Twitter has proven (again, Ms Young) that it has a role to play in a disaster.

[For a digest of social media/networks being used around the bushfires, see Lee Hopkins' post.]

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Bloggers (and others) getting the legal recognition they deserve over #bushfires

Twitter panned by the civic-minded. Supposedly.