Slimey fat tosser 0 - Bloggers 1000

I mentioned a while back in a comment on MoT that I'd post something on the Usmanov/Fasthosts/libel law story. There are two reasons why I haven't. Firstly I've had a nasty bone infection and secondly, I really couldn't be arsed.  But here is a very brief summary of my thoughts. I haven't bothered linking to all the sources, if you don't know the details you'll find them here.

Changing the libel laws would have made no difference to the outcome of this story. The appeal to Fasthosts was that their terms and conditions had been breached. Most people don't bother to read the T&C of their hosting company or blog provider. They should. They would see that it would be perfectly possible for a great many blogs to be shut down quite legitimately without any consideration of the laws, libel or otherwise. Nudity, bad language, offensive remarks, copyright infringement the list is endless.  The truth is most hosting companies don't give a toss about these things and aren't even aware of them amongst their millions of customers...until someone makes a fuss. Then they have to make a decision. Is it worth the hassle to defend their customer or should they just dump him or her and forget about it? That is a commercial judgement and a change in the libel laws won't make a jot of difference.

In the US the hosting company is not regarded as a publisher of the material it hosts. But the blogger or webmaster would still be liable for prosecution for any material posted on his site wherever the servers were based and whatever his nationality. So moving hosts outside the UK provides some protection but not much.

Fasthosts have been criticised for having no backbone. Well they haven't. But, the truth is, Fasthosts couldn't care less about free speech. They are in it for the money. They are not interested in defending a customer in his fight against the state, fat oligarchs or anyone else. That's life.

Fundamentally, the libel laws are not going to change. If anything things look set to tighten up on the internet. I think we'll look back to the late 90's and early 2000's as a golden era of freedom on the web. Big business is taking over. Its all about monetizing and advertising. And you know what? Most people are going to go right along with it. As for restrictions to free speech, I worry more about the actions of the state than that of oily businessmen.

If you are going to publish controversial or contentious content you need to find a web host which is happy to accommodate you. The law in this country considers the hosting company to be a joint publisher of material it hosts so common sense would suggest at the very least not using a UK based webhost. There are webhosts specifically set up as defenders of free speech and failing that maybe bloggers and activists concerned about the issue should think about setting something up for themselves. You can set up your own server and even, if it comes to it, use your computer as a server.

In the end all the material that was temporarily taken down is back up X 1000. One of the offending articles by Craig Murray has been reproduced by many bloggers all over the web including this page I set up on Blogger.

Free speech lives on and the attempts to stifle the voices of dissent have backfired. That is the most important and the most reassuring aspect of this whole saga. Let's try and keep it that way.