Indian Blogger Sued, Forced To Apologize, For Criticizing Journalist And Quoting Wikipedia
from the free-speech-isn't-free dept
Reader VivekM alerts us to an unfortunate news story in India, where a blogger who was critical of a journalist's coverage of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year was sued for his blog post, and then forced to take down the post and apologize. The specific issue appeared to be over a quote taken from a Wikipedia article about the journalist, rather than any actual personal attack on the journalist. Of course, in forcing the blogger to take down the content, it's kicked up quite a lot of attention and a fire storm of protest from numerous Indian bloggers who feel that this is an attack on free speech. Defamation laws are all too often used to stifle free speech, and it doesn't look like India has any sort of anti-SLAPP law to prevent these sorts of legal attacks. There's nothing wrong with being offended or bothered about criticism, but there are plenty of ways to respond to criticism without resorting to lawsuits.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: bloggers, free speech, india, opinions
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Free Speech?
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There is free speech in India. But most of the time it is suppressed to protect against defamation. It is a sorry situation.
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Re: Free Speech?
It is an unfortunate things as even the supreme Court of India has taken criticism as contempt of court and denied the freedom of speech to its citizens(Arundhati Roy case)
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Re:
Next , maybe she will sue us on Facebook- the group with over 4000 members- Please Take Barha off Air- just goes onto show her "popularity" ;)
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Defamation laws
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