cearta.ie – Page 161 – the Irish for rights

Jonathan Zittrain (below, left) thinks so (here, republished here):

… But this is a good time to point out something beyond the cat-and-mouse of spam-and-filter: email is dying. … most students today rarely use email, preferring instant messaging, Facebook, Myspace, and other private messaging attached to a proprietary service. … Email is clearly broken, and the various anti-spam tricks designed to extend its life can only go so far. But it’s sad to see the last great shared app eclipsed.

This seems more than a shade apocalyptic to me. It may be true of US high school kids and/or college students, but it is certainly not true – yet? – of Irish university students, to say nothing of their lecturers (some of whom have yet to embrace email, let alone transcend it!). But, that aside, there is an important question here: is email dying under the weight of spam? What do you think?

Update 1 (7 July 2007): Peter Black has also picked up on Zittrain’s post, and agrees with it; an extract:

I agree with this analysis as from my own experience I know that I almost never use email for any personal communication; I have to use email for work, but most of my personal communication occurs through Facebook.

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Membership of the Press Council of Ireland

4 July, 200710 December, 2012

| 4 Comments

| Press Council

The membership of the Press Council of Ireland was announced today (Blurred Keys | Breaking News | Media Forum | RTÉ | the press release pdf is here). Their first job will be to fill the position of Press Ombudsman. Once that is done, the Press Council of Ireland and Office of the Press Ombudsman can be formally launched as an independent regulatory mechanism for Irelandâ€™s print (though not broadcast) media. When they are up and running, the Press Council and Ombudsman will allow a quick avenue of complaint against newspapers for breaching the Code of Practice (pp 10-13 of this pdf). Complaints will go in the first instance to the Ombudsman, though complex cases and appeals from the Ombudsman will go to the Council.…

Defaming the Polish People

3 July, 20073 July, 2007

| 2 Comments

| Freedom of Expression

Via Of Laws and Men, I have come late to the following story from Roy Greenslade:

The Spanish newspaper El PaÃs and a writer, Pilar Rahola, are facing legal action in Poland for “defaming the Polish people.” The authorities were outraged by an article by Rahola, published in March, which claimed that Polish democracy was suffering from the political influence of the Catholic Church, official homophobia and widespread racism. Juan Luis CebriÃ¡n, the chief of the group that owns El PaÃs, described the lawsuit as an “utterly bizarre and unreal initiative.” (Via Reporters without Borders)

Background: Pilar Rahola (personal website | wikipedia), a former Spanish MP, political activist and author, is quite a colourful character all round; her original article “Polonia y el surrealismo” is here (I think – it’s in Spanish, which I don’t read; but the date is right, and the title is suggestive, even to me); there is a reaction to it here; the Reporters without Borders article is here; and there is another reaction to the Polish prosecution here.

Given that it was my view that any attempt to prosecute former Polish President Lech Walesa for insulting his current successor could not survive challenge in the European Court of Human Rights on foot of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, it will not come as a suprise that I don’t think that any prosecution of Rahola could either.…

The new physics of lawyering

3 July, 200726 July, 2007

| 3 Comments

| Law

Via Susan Crawford, I have learned about OneWebDay (to find out more, click on the link and the image at the left).

And today, her post on The new legal physics is quite simply superb; her closing paragraph is more full of insight than anything else I have read this year:

Nothing ever goes away. Law firms aren’t going to disappear in my lifetime. But it does seem to me that lawyers will have to evolve to deal with a system that is vastly different from what was in place just twenty years ago. Everyone has access to all the information, so lawyers can’t charge for looking things up. They can only stay “off the treadmill” if they let go of the idea that they have some omniscient brooding right to charge for the kinds of tasks they used to do. Like newspapers, movie studios, telephone companies, and post offices, lawyers will have to adapt to the new physics of the internet.

Read the rest of her post.…

Unwritten books, unshown art

28 June, 200713 March, 2008

| 4 Comments

| Blasphemy, Censorship, Freedom of Expression

Salman Rushdie’s knighthood has provoked many responses in the print and broadcast media and online, including a post on this blog. But the best I’ve seen is by Andrew Anthony in this week’s Observer: Sir Salman is a godsend to literature and free speech.

Anthony’s piece is very well written and definitely repays reading; here’s a flavour:

… Few appeared to realise that a massive symbolic attack had been launched [by Khomeni’s 1989 fatwa against The Satanic Verses] against the most vital freedom, not only in art but in society, the freedom of expression. Still less that our rather timid and repentant response would encourage religious extremists and censors.

Who can calculate how many books have subsequently gone unwritten and artworks unshown? We do know that the play Behzti was closed down in a theatre in Birmingham by a Sikh mob. We know that John Latham’s God Is Great was removed from the Tate gallery, even without complaints, due to the fear that it might cause offence. We know that the Danish cartoons were not published in this country, when they were the biggest story in the world. And abroad, countless intellectuals, writers and politicians now require round-the-clock police protection.

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IFCO bans Manhunt II

25 June, 20077 November, 2010

| 7 Comments

| Censorship, IFCO, Media and Communications

Following on from my recent posts (here and here) about the role of the Irish Film Censor’s Office (IFCO), last week brought news that the Censor, John Kelleher, had exercised his powers for the first time to ban a computer game on grounds of violence. The Video Recordings Acts, 1989 and 1992 extend the powers in the Censorship of Films Acts, 1923-1992 to cover videos (all of the relevant legislation is collected here). In particular, the Video Recordings Act, 1989 (also here) gives the Censor the power to certify and/or ban “video recordings”. Marie McGonagle discusses the system here (pdf; see pp 23-30; hat tip: TJ McIntyre). Although the definition of “video recording” in section 1 of the 1989 Act is sufficiently wide to cover games, they are (by another definition in the same section) exempted from that definition unless they are “unfit for viewing” (as defined in section 3); and if they are so unfit, then the Censor may ban them under Section 7(1)(b) of the Act, which provides:

If the Official Censor, having examined a video recording containing a video work … is of opinion that the work is unfit for viewing because …

(b) it depicts acts of gross violence or cruelty (including mutilation and torture) towards humans or animals,

he may make an order … prohibiting the supply of video recordings containing the work.

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The best reason for freedom of expression …

24 June, 200726 March, 2009

| 5 Comments

| Blasphemy, Freedom of Expression

… is commentary like this, from the always-incisive Martyn Turner in the Irish Times on Thursday (21 June 2007) (click on the image for the full-size version from the Irish Times website):

On the issues raised in the cartoon, Michelle Malkin is always good value – especially this important post (even if I don’t usually agree with her other opinions; oh, wait – respecting her right to express the opinions with which I disagree is what freedom of expression is all about!). And, following on from my own post on the issue some time ago, Martin George has another excellent post on Cambridge and the Muhammed Cartoons Again.…

The manifest destiny of critics’ fair comment

23 June, 200712 October, 2009

| 9 Comments

| Defamation

In my post on defamatory reviews a few days ago, I wrote that critics will usually be able to rely on the defence of ‘fair comment’. Now comes news (hat tip: Daithí) that the Court of Appeal for England and Wales thinks so too!

To be able to rely on this defence, the relevant statement must indeed have been a comment (and recognisably so, as opposed to an allegation of fact, for example); it must have been based on facts that are true (or protected by privilege); it must have been made on a matter of public interest (and the courts are now taking quite a broad view of what constitutes the public interest for this purpose); and it must have been one which could have been made by an honest person (that is to say: it must have been ‘fair’). In a relatively recent important case, Lord Nicholls said of this last requirement:

Finally, the comment must be one which could have been made by an honest person, however prejudiced he might be, and however exaggerated or obstinate his views. It must be germane to the subject matter criticised. Dislike of an artistâ€™s style would not justify an attack upon his morals or manners.

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