2 Mar 2023 | News and features, Statements, Sweden, United Kingdom
In January 2023, Swedish business and finance publication Realtid confirmed that they had reached a settlement with businessman Svante Kumlin over a legal action Kumlin had taken as a result of articles published in late 2020. Under the terms of the settlement, while Kumlin will pay part of Realtid’s legal fees, Realtid is obliged to share a clarification and apology on its website on three of its articles about Kumlin and his company Eco Energy World (EEW).
The settlement comes more than two years after the legal action against Realtid and their journalists was initiated, and seven months after a judge ruled that the courts of England and Wales did not have jurisdiction over ten of the thirteen defamation claims EEW and Kumlin had initially brought.
Dozens of human rights and media freedom organisations had repeatedly expressed solidarity with Realtid due to the case having been deemed a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) from the outset. SLAPPs seek to put pressure on public watchdogs by draining them of time, money, and energy in a bid to silence them.
“Overall, we welcome the fact that Realtid’s SLAPP has come to an end and that their articles will remain online in an unamended format,” the organisations said. “Nonetheless, Realtid and their journalists have paid dearly to defend their public interest reporting, not only financially, but in time and energy also. They will never be made whole.”
“We believe that, once again, this case emphasises the urgent need for concrete action to be taken, including the enactment of robust anti-SLAPP legislation in the UK. It is difficult to imagine a case like this getting this far if more robust protections were in place,” the organisations said. “We need to ensure that public watchdogs are empowered to carry out their work, which is so crucial to our democracy.”
Signed:
Index on Censorship
RSF Sweden
Justice for Journalists Foundation
ARTICLE 19
Blueprint for Free Speech
Society of Authors
National Union of Journalists
The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
International Press Institute (IPI)
OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)
Global Witness
Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
Media Law Resource Center
Xnet, Spain
Spotlight on Corruption
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Association Justice and Environment, z.s.
Swedish Union of Journalists
PEN International
English PEN
1 Mar 2023 | News and features, Statements
The undersigned organisations reiterate their support for journalist Carole Cadwalladr as the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the case taken against her by millionaire businessman and political donor Arron Banks. Banks’ legal action related to two publications in which Cadwalladr had said the businessman was lying about his relationship with the Russian state – one in a TED Talk and one in a tweet.
Last June, Banks lost the libel action against Cadwalladr. At the time, the judge ruled that Cadwalladr had successfully established a public interest defence for the TED Talk, which was the only of the two publications to have reached the threshold for serious harm. While the judge found that Cadwalladr’s public interest defence was no longer applicable after the Electoral Commission exonerated Banks (in April 2020), she did not believe that the continued publication of the TED Talk could cause serious harm to his reputation. In his appeal, Banks argued that the judge should have found that both the TED Talk and the Tweet did seriously harm his reputation after April 2020.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal upheld Banks’ argument that the continued publication of the TED Talk had the potential to harm his reputation, but it dismissed two other grounds of his appeal, upholding the initial decision to dismiss the claim in respect of the Tweet. Although the court acknowledged that Cadwalladr does not have control over TED’s publications, she will nonetheless be liable for the damages arising from the publication of the TED Talk after April 2020.
“We are pleased that the judge dismissed the majority of the appeal against Cadwalladr,” the members of the UK Anti-SLAPPs Coalition said. “We have long categorised this case as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), aimed at intimidating and silencing Cadwalladr.” SLAPPs abuse the law in order to intimidate and silence public watchdogs from speaking out on matters of public interest.
Last year, the co-chairs of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition rebutted Mrs Justice Steyn’s assertion that the case against Cadwalladr was not a SLAPP, highlighting the fact that Banks could have taken action against The Observer or TED instead of her. “In compounding the power imbalance between him and the defendant, [Banks’] decision to take legal action against [Cadwalladr] as an individual adds weight to the categorisation of the case as a SLAPP,” they wrote.
“Last July, the government set out a package of measures aimed at tackling SLAPPs, but it appears that limited – if any – progress has been made at enacting those measures since then,” the organisations concluded. “We once again call on the government to step up. Our democracy relies on the ability of public watchdogs to hold power to account.”
Signed:
Index on Censorship
Justice for Journalists Foundation
Whistleblowing International Network
openDemocracy
National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
Public Interest News Foundation
ARTICLE 19
English PEN
The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
Committee to Protect Journalists
Protect
Spotlight on Corruption
PEN International
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
23 Feb 2023 | Events, Ireland, Legal action against journalists, Media Freedom, Slapps, United Kingdom
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Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) are brought by powerful and wealthy entities against public watchdogs in an effort to compel them to withhold or remove critical coverage, even if it is accurate and in the public interest.
When SLAPPs successfully drive information out of the public domain, they can make it difficult to hold power to account. SLAPPs threaten not only our freedom of information, but our human rights, our rule of law, and our democracies. The use of this tactic to undermine criticism and evade scrutiny has proliferated globally but Ireland has been identified as a jurisdiction of concern in the EU.
How do SLAPPs work and, crucially, what can we do to stop them? At this full-day conference, attendees will hear from lawyers, journalists, academics, politicians, and campaigners, as well as from keynote speakers, UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor, and human rights campaigner Bill Browder. Full schedule to be announced in due course.
This event is organised by Index on Censorship with support from Justice for Journalists Foundation and in partnership with Schuler Democracy Forum in the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Trinity School of Law. The conference will take place in a hybrid format, accessible both via an online livestream and in-person. To get updates on speakers and sessions, please subscribe to Index on Censorship’s newsletter.
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When: Thursday 23 March 2023, 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM GMT
Where: Trinity Long Room Hub, Fellow Square, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
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3 Feb 2023 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
Photo: Tookapic/Pixabay
After seven years of debate, five Secretaries of State and hours and hours of parliamentary discussion the Online Safety Bill has reached the second chamber of the British legislature. In the coming months new language will be negotiated, legislative clauses ironed out and deals will be done with the government to get it over the line. But the question for Index is what will be the final impact of the legislation on freedom of expression and how will we know how much content is being deleted as a matter of course.
The team at Index have been working, with partners, for several years to try and ensure that freedom of expression online is protected within the legislation. That the unintended consequences of the bill don’t impinge our rights to debate, argue, inspire and even dismiss each other on the online platforms which are now fundamental to many of our daily lives. After all, in a post Covid world, many of us don’t differentiate between time spent online and time spent in real life. They are typically one and the same. That isn’t to say however that as a society we have managed to establish social norms online (as we have offline) which allow the majority of us to go about our daily lives without unnecessary conflict and pain.
We’ve been working so intently on this bill not just because we want to protect digital rights in the UK but because this legislation is likely to set a global standard. So restrictions on speech in this legislation will give cover to tyrants and bad faith actors around the world who seek to use some aspects of this new law to impinge on the free expression of their own populations. Which is why our work on this bill is so important.
We still have two main concerns about the legislation in its current format. The first is the definition, identification and deletion of illegal content. The legislation currently demands that the platforms determine what is illegal and then automatically delete the content so it can’t be seen, shared or amplified. In theory that sounds completely reasonable, but given the sheer scale of content on social media platforms these determinations will have to be made by algorithms not people. And as we know algorithms have built-in bias and they struggle to identify nuance, satire or context. That’s even more the case when the language isn’t English or the content is imagery rather than words. When you add in the concept of corporate fines and executive prosecution it’s likely that most platforms will opt to over-delete rather than potentially fall foul of the new regulatory regime. Content that contains certain keywords, phrases, or images are likely to be deleted by default – even if the context is the opposite of their normal use. The unintended consequence of seeking to automatically delete content without providing platforms with a liability shield so they can retain the posts without being criminally liable will lead to mass over-deletion.
The second significant concern are the proposals to break end-to-end encryption. The government claim that this would only be for finding evidence of child abuse, which again sounds reasonable. But end-to-end encryption cannot be a halfway house. Something is either encrypted to ensure privacy or it isn’t and therefore can be hacked. And whilst no one would or should defend those who use such tools to hurt children, we need to consider how else the tools are used. By dissidents to tell their stories, by journalists to protect their sources, by families to share children’s photos, by banks and online retailers to keep us financially protected and by victims of domestic violence to plan their escape. This is not a simple tool which can be broken at whim, we need to find a way to make sure that everyone is protected while we seek to protect children from child abusers. This cannot be beyond the wit of our legislators and in the coming months we’ll find out.
