UK Court: Guy Who Didn't Write Defamatory Tweet Needs To Pay $50,000 In Damages Because The Guy Who Did Doesn't Have Any Money

from the WTF-UK dept

We're all pretty familiar with the United State's take on defamation. Except for the noticeable lack of a federal anti-SLAPP law, the system works pretty well. Those claiming they've been defamed need to meet some rather high bars to win a case, which is how it should be in a country that has enshrined free speech protections. Without these high bars, it's whoever has the most money or the biggest lawyer, rather than the facts of the case. It's not perfect, but dear lord it is so much better than how it's handled by our former overlords.

Defamation lawsuits are good business in the UK. The law encourages venue shopping, giving mildly-insulted plaintiffs a route to securing a payout for slightly-bruised feelings. It's a mess and it just keeps getting worse. A recent decision [PDF] by a UK court in a libel lawsuit has delivered some jaw-dropping judicial reasoning.

A tweet from a group account used by members of the Ukip party apparently defamed a man by mislabeling him a compatriot of "child groomers." The tweet was composed by one member of the Bristol Ukip. The lawsuit, however, was allowed to be amended to hold someone else completely responsible for this tweet. The end result is one person paying for another person's alleged libel.

A former chairman of a UK Independence Party branch has been ordered to pay £40,000 in damages to a man defamed on Twitter even though he did not write the offending tweet.

Ruling in Zahir Monir v Steve Wood, the Honourable Mr Justice Nicklin accepted that Steve Wood had not written or approved the tweet, made from the UKIP branch account and picturing a Labour election candidate alongside two men described as 'child grooming taxi drivers'. However he held that the tweet's author, John Langley, was 'quite clearly acting as the agent of Mr Wood'.

The court ruled that the tweet spread far beyond the account's 547 followers. It came to this conclusion despite there being plenty of evidence the tweet was quickly debunked by those who saw it. Zahir Monir called the police after being rebuffed by former Ukip chairman Steve Wood, who refused to take down the tweet or apologize for its content.

Steve Wood made a good argument: he did not compose the tweet nor control the actions of other users of the Bristol Ukip account. The court decided none of these facts mattered since the person who actually tweeted the libel was too broke to pay damages. I am not making this up.

In particular Wood argued that Langley, originally named on the claim form, should be held responsible. The proceedings were served on Wood after it became apparent that there was no prospect of recovering damages from Langley, a self-styled 'maverick' who had a sideline as a pornographic video maker and actor under the name 'Johnny Rockard'.

This runs completely contrary to the American way, which shifts the burden to the person actually doing the dirty, rather than the richest person remotely connected to the offender. This liability shift would be ridiculous enough on its own, but the court's stated reason for doing so sends the signal that it's willing to ensure the wronged get paid, even if the person they're suing is judgment-proof. That's not how the system is supposed to work, but that's apparently how it does work in the UK.

Rulings like this will only encourage plaintiffs to file super-sketchy lawsuits and roll the dice on the UK's terrible, zero-speech-protection laws handing them an unearned win. And with the specter of "fake news" omnipresent, litigation is only going to increase, bringing with it new levels of absurdity as the UK courts apply the country's laws to a variety of heated, inaccurate online discourse.

Filed Under: defamation, free speech, john langley, liability, steve wood, uk, ukip, zahir monir

UK Party Leader Attacks Satirical Mobile Game Made By Teenagers Interested In Politics

from the well-okay-then dept

Nigel Farage, head of the British political party UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), is certainly an interesting character. UKIP is something akin to a vastly more organized version of the Tea Party here in the United States, in that their policies are typically further to the right of the more common conservatives within the political system. Farage is known to be controversial, to say the least, in part because of some opposition to his party's policies (which probably applies to most leaders of political parties in general), but more so because he often times enjoys getting in front of reporters and cameras and doing really stupid things, such as going ad hominem on a group of politically-minded teenagers who created a satirical mobile game jabbing at UKIP's policies.

A phone app made by school students and featuring a character called Nicholas Fromage kicking immigrants off the white cliffs of Dover has been criticised by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage. Farage claimed the game, developed by a group of sixth-formers from Canterbury Academy, was “risible and pathetic” and that it had “crossed the line”, despite saying he welcomed the opinions of young people.

The game, which is again clearly parody, is a cartoonish jab at some of UKIP's policies with regards to immigration. Without taking any stand on the issues being discussed by the game, it seems almost too facile to point out that Farage's taking on of the students, particularly going so far as to call their efforts "risible and pathetic", is ill-conceived at best. To leave those attacks with a footer claiming to welcome the input of younger generations simply serves to spotlight how dumb this is. Open dialogue ought to be a politician's best friend, particularly for the leader of a self-ascribed libertarian-leaning party. The school where the teenagers developed the game, thankfully, has the children's backs.

But the school’s principal, Phil Karnavas, has defended the app, which he says is a bit of fun to celebrate “brilliant, traditional British satire”.

"It’s a bit rich, bearing in mind some of the things the members of Ukip have said, for their leader to say they have crossed the line. Mr Farage can’t have it both ways. He cannot expect young people to engage in politics and then criticise what they say when they do.”

Imagine instead if the footer had been the entirety of Farage's response. What if he had simply said that he welcomes the input of younger Brits and suggested that political interest from the young is a good thing? After all, for all of the ribbing in the game, some of it quite sharp, the whole thing was framed by a disclaimer that the point was to create political dialogue. For Farage to pretend like some kind of line was crossed simply makes him look more childish than the children he attacked.

[Farage] said: “Those elements are risible and in many ways pathetic. I think I’m quite well known for having a sense of humour."

Pro-tip: if you have to tell a reporter about how everyone knows you have a great sense of humor, you don't have a great sense of humor.

Filed Under: apps, children, humor, immigration, nicholas fromage, nigel farage, satire, teenagers, ukik, ukip

Police Ask Blogger To Take Down Tweets Critical Of UK Political Party

from the officers-admit-to-being-not-entirely-sure-what's-all-this-then dept

The UK's free speech laws are so riddled with exceptions that news of someone being investigated for an "offensive" posting hardly raises an eyebrow these days. This fact doesn't make the following story any less ridiculous, but it does explain why "tweeting" and "police officers" are being used in the same sentence.

Michael Abberton, a Cambridgeshire blogger, found himself talking to two police officers after a recent tweet of his made a UKIP (UK Independent Party) member feel bad. What Abberton posted to his Twitter feed was a fact-checked version of an anti-UKIP flyer that mockingly pointed out ten reasons to vote for the party, including the plan to raise taxes on the poorest 88% of the country and abolish laws that protect personal liberties.

According to Abberton, a complaint from an unnamed person led to the following incident.

They wondered if I was the Michael Abberton on Twitter and I said yes. Then they said this was in relation to a complaint that had been made by a certain political party in relation to tweets I had published about them and one tweet in particular which talked about ten reasons to vote for them…

The police explained that I hadn't broken any law - there was no charge to answer and it really wasn't a police matter.

They asked me to 'take it down' but I said I couldn't do that as it had already been retweeted and appropriated, copied, many times and I no longer had any control of it (I had to explain to one of the officers what Twitter was and how it worked). They said that they couldn't force me to take it down anyway.

So, if the police could do nothing and it wasn't really a law enforcement issue, why did they bother showing up? Abberton points out that the officers, though being incredibly polite and almost embarrassed, couldn't really explain why they were standing in his house discussing Twitter posts.

Abberton then asked if he was forbidden to tweet about his conversation with the police.

I asked if I could tweet about the visit. The straight answer was 'no', as this might appear prejudicial in light of the upcoming election and the police must appear to remain neutral. But they couldn't stop me from doing so, as I had Freedom of Speech. Incredulously, I said, "...but you must realise how this looks!"

Everyone realizes how this looks. It looks as though someone at UKIP has enough pull to persuade the local police department to drop by and have a chat with someone it perceives to be an annoyance. Abberton's tweet simply fact-checked some anti-UKIP handout, something which was a clearly neutral undertaking. That he found a majority of the claims to be supported by UKIP's own documents may be damning for UKIP, but that problem originates with the party, not with Abberton's detective work.

A police spokesman tried to deflect criticism from the department's actions, first by claiming routine complaints are routinely investigated, and then by claiming the police were not a censorious force.

"[A] gentleman has a right to free speech – absolute total right to free speech – we can't tell people what they can and can't say on the internet, as long as it's within the law. We certainly don't go to people's houses and say: 'You can't tweet about this'. This is not 1930s Germany."

No, it isn't "1930s Germany." But that's hardly comforting when police are, in fact, going to people's houses and asking them to remove tweets.

Does this ring a bell?

They asked me to 'take [the tweet] down'…

Sometimes all it takes is a little "friendly persuasion" from law enforcement officers to get the intended result, whether or not the justification is legal. Despite everyone in the police department claiming they had no power to make people remove tweets, tweets were removed.

And whilst acknowledging the fact that the police had no right to censure my posts, in order to show goodwill I removed all instances of the poster where I'd sent it @someone, and have not tweeted about the visit or about that political party since.

The tactic worked anyway, and this outcome is probably better than the UKIP complainant probably expected. So, you don't have to be literally 1930s Germany to get the same results. All you have to do is allow political power to guide your police force and hope that goodwill efforts will achieve the completely unenforceable outcome the complainant is seeking.

Filed Under: free speech, intimidation, michael abberton, police, political speech, uk, ukip