...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Beyond their control: One more reason to defenestrate Canada’s thought cops/courts—the rise of the Internet has made their efforts to keep the lid on “hate speech” all but impossible. Sure, the commissars can try to punish every last pipsqueak who steps out of line with p.c. orthodoxy. But that’s but a mote of dust in the cosmos of Internet hate, and, speaking practically, there is no way the Nice Thoughts bureacracy, even with its extraordinary powers, can reign it in. Here’s Julian Porter, the attorney who represented Maclean’s Magazine in its B.C. show trial, explaining the situation to the Globe and Mail:

…After four decades of suing or defending prominent authors, journalists and businessmen entangled in some of Canada's most memorable libel cases, Mr. Porter warns that it is getting harder to defend reputations or preserve freedom of speech - rights honed over centuries of case law.

One culprit, he said, is quasi-judicial bodies such as human rights tribunals, which are operating far "beyond their jurisdiction."

When these agencies investigate slander and defamation charges, he argues, they operate outside the bounds of civil court procedure. Defendants cannot rely on traditional libel defences such as truth, fair comment or good intent.

At human rights hearings, he said, cases can be clogged with witnesses who are allowed to interpret how articles, such as that written by Mr. Steyn, perpetuate hatred.

"It becomes a zoo, it is utterly unworkable," he said.

A more insidious threat is the Internet, Mr. Porter argues. Anonymous websites and blogs are havens of defamation, slander and libel because their owners and authors are difficult to trace or hold accountable.

The result is a strange libel universe comprised of two worlds that play by very different sets of rules.

In traditional print and broadcast media, publishing and entertainment companies publish corrections or pay damages when courts find they have wrongfully damaged reputations. In what Mr. Porter calls the legal netherworld, websites, blogs and a variety of digital voices operate with virtual impunity. Many of the voices are difficult to trace. When they are revealed, most have slim financial resources to compensate defamed parties.

"The slander is out there on the Web and you can't put it back in a box," he said. "You don't know where the line is now. You don't have access to someone with money who cares or is responsible about what they say ... There just isn't anyone around who is accountable for the words," he said…

Leo Adler of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and the guy who went mano a mano with Ezra Levant when he spoke at the Ontario Bar Association last month, disagrees. As he tells Jerusalem Report, he thinks there is a way to get a handle on ‘Net hate. But it will require lots and lots of concerted effort by lots and lots of anti-hate mongers, like him.

Best of luck with that one, Leo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:48 | link | comments

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