8 Oct 2012 | News and features
Lancashire man Matthew Woods has been sentenced to 12 weeks in a young offender’s institute for making some very poor jokes.
It’s hard to know what to say after that.
Woods, 20, was arrested after posting jokes about missing Welsh schoolgirl April Jones on his Facebook page last Thursday. An angry mob reportedly later gathered at his house in Chorley, and he was taken by police at a separate address (quite possibly for his own protection).
According to reports, Woods was charged under sec 127 of the Communications Act — the same law, readers will recall, that Twitter Joke Trial defendant Paul Chambers found himself on the wrong side of.
It is worth noting that in his judgement on Paul Chambers appeal, the Lord Chief Justice made it quite clear that the Communications Act should not diminish
“Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it”
But it has been used exactly to diminish Woods’s right to express unpopular, unfashionable and distasteful humour.
The “unfashionable” and “unpopular” elements of Woods’s comments and subsequent conviction bring to mind Liam Stacey’s conviction after he tweeted stupid comments about footballer Fabrice Muamba. Just as the nation then was apparently united in sympathy for the collapsed footballer, so now we are united in grief with the people of Machynlleth. Woods would appear to have been found “guilty” of crimes against taste and against sentiment.
We cannot allow this to continue. No one should be put in prison for making a joke that other people don’t like.
This week, the Crown Prosecution Service is consulting interested parties (including Index on Censorship) on whether new guidelines for prosecutions of social media cases are needed. This case goes to show how desperately urgent this reform is. In the past on this blog, we’ve bemoaned the something-must-be-done attitude that can lead to these cases coming to court. But now we have to say it ourselves: Something must be done about these absurd prosecutions. They are a danger to free speech, and a danger to the web.
ALSO READ: How do we legislate for social media?
2 Oct 2012 | News and features, Statements
This letter appeared in the Financial Times
Sir, Your editorial (“Obama’s realist foreign policy”, September 27) claims that free speech purists were offended by Barack Obama’s comments on Innocence of Muslims. As an organisation that defends free expression around the world, Index on Censorship would certainly include itself in the free speech purist camp. Even the president of the US is entitled to say what he likes under the first amendment, as long as he upholds that vital part of the US constitution for all.
In his address this week to world leaders at the UN General Assembly, President Obama defended “the right of all people to express their views — even views that we disagree with”.
However, in reality, the White House is guilty of “reaching out” to Google to look into taking the video off YouTube on the grounds that it breached Google’s terms of service, justifying its removal. This intervention by the US government suggests censorship by stealth, whereby governments can claim to protect free speech while putting pressure on “middle men” such as internet service providers to censor for them. All of which raises the question: “Who should control the internet?”
Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship, London EC1, UK
28 Sep 2012 | Russia
Last week was a painful one for free speech in Russia.
Tens of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Moscow bureau journalists were fired within two days. First an entire internet department, then radio hosts, reporters and producers — around 90 per cent of RFE/RL’s Moscow staff became jobless.
A further 5 per cent quit in protest, including me.
RFE/RL broadcasts on medium waves will end on 10 November due to amendments to the law on mass media which state a radio cannot broadcast in a primary service area if more than 5 per cent of it is owned by foreign individual or legal entity. RFE/RL’s broadcasts in Russia will only be available online through its website.
In a in a statement released on 24 September, the service’s American manager Steve Korn stressed changes were made to improve RFE/RL’s Russian service. Yet in a letter to the US Congress Committee on Foreign Relations, notable Russian human rights activists wrote: “The KGB couldn’t have done worse for Radio Liberty’s image, as well as the image of USA in Russia, than American managers Julia Ragona and Steve Korn have done”. In a letter, the activists added:
Professionals with irreproachable reputation were fired; while a newly appointed RFE/RL’s Russian Service director [Masha Gessen] is a person whose managing skills were receiving negative assessments on her previous positions.
They asked the Congress to create a commission for a thorough investigation into Radio Liberty’s managers’ activities, which they said “harmed the USA’s public image in Russia”, and requested they “revise the decisions”.
Gessen, who will oficially take her post of RFE/RL Russian Service director on 1 October, denies allegations of “cleaning up the media for her new team”.
Korn and Ragona have not commented on the issue.
The switch to online and departure from medium waves will occur without the people who, over past few years, made Radio Svoboda (as it is known in Russian) the second most quoted radio station after Echo Moscow (which has an FM frequency), according to data from monitoring service Medialogia. Radio Liberty’s website was very much original. Decoded programmes’ texts formed just a small part of website content. It consisted mainly of informative pieces, blogs and a large multimedia section with video reports, documentaries and live video broadcasts.
The internet team, which I had the honour to be a part of, increased the number of visitors and the core audience tenfold. Radio Svoboda achievements were hailed by Broadcasting Board of Governors.
However, the mass dismissals were made.
RFE/RL was established in the 1950s in the United States as a private non-profit mass media organisation funded by the American Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). RFE/RL broadcasts in 21 countries and 28 languages. Russian service history began soon after Stalin died in March 1953, but until 1988 its broadcasts were jammed as “anti-Soviet”. It was the “enemy’s voice” during the Cold War.
In August 1991, after RFE/RL’s full coverage of the August Coup, president Boris Yeltsin issued a decree allowing Radio Liberty to broadcast in Russia. The document was given personally to former RFE/EL journalist Mikhail Sokolov, who was fired last week together with the overwhelming majority of his colleagues.
Since Yeltsin’s decree Radio Svoboda was retransmitted by Russian FM stations. This ended soon after Putin’s second presidential term began in 2006. The official reason concerned incorrect registration documents. However, most Radio Svoboda staff believed this was a form of censorship. The radio was forced to broadcast across short and medium waves, AM frequencies and online.
No law was violated in last week’s events, Radio Svoboda former staff say, but moral and ethical values were.
The amendments to the mass media law are not the only means of targeting groups that receive overseas funding. Since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in May this year, a law has been passed which forces foreign-funded NGOs involved in political activity to register as “foreign agents” in Russia.
The tragicomic element is that the editorial office, which consisted of people fighting against censorship and advocating for freedom of expression, was destroyed not by its antagonists, but by its own chiefs at the expense of American taxpayers, whose money was used in the name of promoting democracy.
What should the Inquiry do? As little as possible, suggests Trevor Kavanagh. The press does not need licences like dogs and gun owners