Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Media3: Where harm might fall, in reply to Thomas Beagle,
“And in a number of American states there are statutes which make it an offence to send electronic communications without legitimate purpose which would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress.” Footnote 159.
And that doesn't include the crazy shit going on around teens and sexting, which is landing kids with child pornography charges. The US is not an example to follow, at all.
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Hard News: Paying for what doesn't come…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
That would seem to be the logical way for it to work – a wee add-on to your browser which pops up and confirms that you want to pay 25 cents to read this article.
That's basically how Flattr works -- except with Flattr you allocate some of your monthly account after reading or watching something you like.
It's just a shame that Flattr is almost unusable for most people.
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Hard News: Paying for what doesn't come…, in reply to Yamis,
I sort of meant a portable device. A radio that you can cart around with you that can pick up stations and then be programmed to record them or whatever. It obviously wouldn’t be cheap (at first anyway). And no, I don’t mean one with a bloody tape deck in it to record on to. I mean something more sophisticated :)
Those things totally exist in the DAB world. But it seems that not much has happened with DAB in New Zealand in the last 18 months.
Imagine how useful DAB instant rewind would be for Morning Report or to catch the names of artists on music radio. Sigh.
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Hard News: Media3: Where harm might fall, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Does Trevor Mallard have an expectation of confidence in relation to the right-wing talking point he posted on Facebook, then deleted?
Extremely unlikely. The LawComm does at least emphasise that political speech requires a high degree of protection.
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Hard News: Media3: Where harm might fall, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
My point is that people are often not nice. There is a threshold at which this becomes criminal. This shouldn’t (and can’t) be set too low. In general (and I’m willing to accept a need for some tweaking) the laws and criminal court procedures we already have set that level appropriately.
I think we need to separate the criminal offence part from what, if anything, the Tribunal should do, which doesn't include criminal prosecution.
I don't accept the idea that once something's on the internet, it's game-over-and-nothing-to-be-done -- if I did I'd never bother removing or annotating false or damaging material from blogs or discussions,. But I am willing to do that, precisely because it limits harm.
Clearly, it's different where a statutory tribunal does the removal or annotation, especially if it needs to compel someone else to do it. But if harm can be limited by the removal of damaging material, it seems reasonable to consider when that would be appropriate.
This is far less of a problem for people with the money and sophistication to employ a lawyer. I know a woman who was subject to claims about her sexual behaviour by Cameron Slater. I gather he removed the material after a brisk communication with respect to legal action. But not everyone is in a position to stare down the likes of Slater like that.
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Hard News: Media3: Where harm might fall, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
As far as I’m aware, nowhere in any NZ law does it say “except on the Internet”. So we have offences, we have elaborate mechanisms of enforcement. If the police and other regulators are failing to conduct adequate investigations, that’s a matter for improvement in their systems, not new offences.
Fair enough, although my point in quoting Burrows on those cases was that there are real-world, non-facetious experiences not well served by quips about horns in the Mt Vic tunnel. I’d rather the discussion included an acknowledgement that vulnerable people do suffer harm from bullying.
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Speaker: Selling the Dream: The Art of…, in reply to Peter Alsop,
to hold your first book is a pretty cool feeling.
My first is my only thus far, but yeah, I remember the feeling. It's magic.
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Hard News: Media3: Where harm might fall, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Happy to help. Would you like to pull a scenario or two from the Briefing Paper for me to address?
Going for a bike ride. Will try later.
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Another thing to ponder: I think many of us thought the Press Council’s findings with respect to complaints about (lack of) accuracy and discrimination in North & South’s infamous Asian immigration story were a victory for the truth.
Given that there was essentially no penalty, what would be so different about a Communications Tribunal making similar findings about an internet publication? (Actually, given that the PC is actually bound to consider the response of the publisher, what the LawComm proposes would be very different.) Would it be better if there was a Blogger’s Code of Conduct, as has been mooted at times?
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Hard News: Media3: Where harm might fall, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
And now having looked at the reports descriptions of these events, if someone could point out how a Communications Tribunal could possibly help in either of the scenarios described, it would be appreciated.
I’d guess they’d be the domain of the proposed new offence rather than the Tribunal. But what about less extreme but still very harmful acts of communications bullying? Can they be dealt with adeqately under existing law? Genuinely just asking.