Internet companies call for PM to change libel laws

Internet publishers and internet service providers (ISPs) have called on the Government to make changes to libel laws that would protect online publishers.

In an open letter to David Cameron, Facebook, Yahoo!, AOL, the Internet Service Providers' Association (Ispa) and others told the prime minister that said changes had to be made in order to protect online free speech.

These include ensuring that publishers of online content, such as social networking sites, message boards and blogs were not initially held liable for defamatory comments or ordered to remove such material until a court tells them to.

They have also said there must be a public interest defence to libel.

Ispa said that internet companies are angered that the multiple publication rule, by which they are bound, predates not only the invention of the internet, but that of the light bulb.

"The effect [of current legislation] is that libel threats are causing online content to be censored, even when the material is not actually defamatory," said the letter.

Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties pledged to reform the libel laws in their manifestos before this year's general election. Lord Lester of Herne Hill published a Private members Defamation Bill on the 26 May 2010 but many believe it does not go far enough.

The latest call for reform follows a report submitted to the Ministry of Justice outlining what Ispa called the “chilling” effect that UK libel laws have on online free speech.

The current multiple publication rule, which is at the heart of the letter, dates back to 1849. Using this rule means that courts have said that an online comment is ‘published’ each time it is accessed.

This means there is no limit to the number of libel actions that could be launched.

Online publishers and ISPs said this should be limited to a year after something is posted. It also said that people acting in the public interest should be able to use that as a defence.

Nicholas Lansman, Ispa’s secretary-general, said: "ISPs are currently in a position where they may have to decide what bears defamatory meaning, putting the intermediary in a position of judge and jury over content.

“We therefore support the call for an innocent dissemination defence, that ISPs should only be forced to remove defamatory material that has been decreed defamatory by a court or competent authority, and to bring libel law into the twenty-first century through the creation of a single publication rule."

A new draft libel reform Bill is expected to be published early in 2011.