Policing contempt law on the web

This last week the web has been coming into quite a bit of conflict with the law. The cases of Baby P and the leaked BNP list raise questions for how our legal system safeguards information in a world where it changes hands so rapidly with only minimal accountability.

In both cases information that is potentially damaging to people involved has found its way into the public domain in spite of the co-operation of the big media channels. To distribute either the BNP list or certain information in the Baby P case would be breaking either an injunction or court reporting restrictions and potentially leave you open to being found guilty of contempt. It’s still happening.

So there are two options either further cyber police are needed to lock all the virtual doors, or we just let everyone have it.

The first is too expensive and most probably won’t work.

The second option could leave all sorts of sensitive information in the public domain. The names of the people in the Baby P case are widely available, even by text, despite the fact that they may threaten future legal proceedings.

Perhaps what we need to do is move towards a system where the onus is on the jury to exclude this material from their decision, rather than ban the press from distributing it. After all is the reason that people want to know this information not at least partly linked to the fact that they are not allowed to.

Derren Brown knows the power of this all too well.

What might this new law look like?

Well I should probably start by saying that no-one really knows. Even any solution devised today may well be outdated tomorrow. The internet moves fast; Westminster does not.

It seems clear that we have to trust jurors to do their job properly and stop viewing them as the weak link in the chain. Perhaps the only way to gain that trust is to study their workings. This is still prohibited by today’s law.

New contempt laws might:

• Allow publication of material, but put emphasis on the jury to exclude this information.
• Include provisions for extra days to give jurors detailed guidance on what they can and cannot consider.
• Put up jurors in a hotel without access to the net or other media.
• Monitor media use from their homes for the period of the trial.
• Allow for jury members to be struck off or replaced at early stages if they are found to be taking onboard outside influence.
• Include harsher penalties for obvious use of outside influence.
• A thirteenth lay person to monitor impartiality in each case.
• Allow better external monitoring of decision making to refine the system, but not to influence individual cases.

These are just ideas and at this moment in time there is nothing more concrete in place. The contempt of court laws look set to remain inadequate for some time yet.

Ten Commandments of Successful Blogging

This week I was lucky enough to be at a lecture by Adam Tinworth on the art of the successful blogger. Drawing on some of the things he and a few others have said, my own experience and the bible; I give you my Ten Commandments of Successful Blogging.

1. Thy god is SEO
Everything you write has to be found. Make sure that happens.

2. Thou shall always be honest
Even in cyberspace it’s still the best policy.

3. Thou shall choose a subject and stick to it
People don’t want to wade through all your thoughts on 100 different things. If you have that much to say get 100 blogs.

4. Thou shall be informed on your subject
If you don’t know say so, then get to know.

5. Thou shall have a conversation with your readers
If they bothered to read what you write and then write back it’s the least you can do to do the same.

6. Thou shall link, link and link again
No one knows your here unless you link to stuff, then they’ll link to you and everyone is happy.

7. Thou shall keep it short and simple
Size really doesn’t matter.

8. Thou shall be visual
Pictures speak 100 words (video speaks more) and blog posts should never be 100 words. The conclusion is obvious.

9. Thou shall post regularly and often
If you want to keep people coming back.

10. Thou shall occasionally break the rules
No one ever got successful sticking to the rules on silly blog posts.

Image by Ben Brown

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Who’s setting the media agenda?

It’s a question that seems to become more pertinent by the day: is the blog sphere now setting the media agenda or is it just reacting to the stories of the mainstream media?

This week we have seen a good example that could be used to make either point. The hysteria induced by Jonathan Ross and Russel Brand’s calls to Andrew Sachs would, on the surface, appear to be a case of public outcry fuelled by YouTube. Real grass roots indignation that sent complaints at the BBC to record numbers. That is until you remember that this was prompted by, the guardian of all our moral fibres, The Daily Mail.

Before we get any further into this I should add that my position is one of total ambivalence. I fail to see how this is offensive to anyone other than Andrew Sachs, who has to date accepted the unqualified apology given and even gone as far as to say he understands the that performances sometimes go wrong.

A quick cruise around the blogsphere reveals quite a similar story. Many seem non-pulsed by all the fuss. Even the BBC’s own feedback ghetto is more balanced than most of the media coverage. Presumably the multitude that wrote complaints do not write blogs.

It seems odd given the extraordinary amount of coverage this has generated (I’ve seen BBC Director General Mark Thompson on TV twice this week, having returned early from holiday) that this view does not seem to have gained more prominence. Instead the papers have firmly set this agenda of going for Aunty’s jugular. Yet curiously the voice of the bloggers seems to be ignored.

Perhaps the most telling thing is how this demonstrates big media’s desire to pick and choose its areas for interaction with its audience. Along with its refusal to give up the reigns of agenda setting. On this occasion it seems that a witch-hunt led by the newspapers has won out over a much more balanced view from people’s couches.