I am sleeping fairly well at night right now. I have never written a tweet
implying Lord McAlpine was a paedophile. (Note: tweet is a common definition
of a micro-blog post. Additional note: Paedophile is a term describing those
attracted to children typically below the age of 13, though in Britain the word
is used a little more liberally to refer to anyone who legally is not expected
to pay an adult fare on public transport.)
In fact, I have never written a tweet bearing McAlpine's name, prior to his
unveiling as the poor bloke BBC Newsnight meant when implying some shadowy
relic of the Conservative Party was abusing children.
And despite witnessing many tweets directly claiming he was a paedophile
(along with four or five regularly alleged others), I believed it was unethical
to "retweet" any of them. (Note for those not familiar with
micro-blogging websites: Retweet is the Twitter term for copying someone else's
tweet into your own Twitter page for other Twitter members to view.)
There was one notable tweet bearing his name that I may well have
retweeted, but it no
longer exists, for the author (a highly respected Guardian columnist) has
apologised and presumably removed it. For that reason, it is no surprise that I
do not even remember if I retweeted it! However, I best apologise just in case.
The tweet in question did little more than question some of the dubious
things written about McAlpine on the Internet, but I suspect in the current
climate the author will be in trouble over that.
That author apologised in the form of a tweet and linked it towards a more
detailed apology. I decided to retweet his apology to my followers - you know,
just in case. I hope Lord McAlpine accepts it and that is the end of the
matter.
Now that is clear, I add a caveat or two to the above
summary of McAlpine vs Twitter. Firstly, I fear that having won the goodwill of
the public in light of some rather diabolical allegations, McAlpine (and more
significantly those representing his interests post-McAlpinegate) risk
overplaying his hand. Secondly, even if McAlpine's response is legally tenable,
it is very much in the context of laws that have not caught up with the demands
of print and broadcast media, let alone the online variety. First, I shall deal
with the former point.
I personally think McAlpine's response is understandable. If I had been
subject to the allegations he has faced, I would be on television too,
auditioning my croakiest voice and reminding the audience how devastated I am
by the allegations. I would have been demanding the BBC justified its research.
No question - I would have sought some compensation from the broadcaster.
Having said that, I also think McAlpine has already done very well. His
settlement with the BBC must surely be some sort of precedent for dealing with
libel through innuendo and cryptic messaging.
I dare say if the BBC was not so on its knees in the fallout of this and
the Savile fiasco, they may have had more of a stomach for a fight. They wanted
the episode over as quickly as possible and who can blame them?
So you would think that Lord McAlpine would be happy with the settlement
for a mischievous report that caused a lot of harmful gossip, and a clear
message sent to the world that he is not a paedophile.
No sooner had the BBC surrendered, his legal team outlined their plans to
pursue up to 10,000 Twitter users over the publishing of defamatory tweets in
what is described as potentially a libel action with the largest number of
defendants ever. The response is hardly a surprise when the first defendant (the BBC) settled
out of court despite not actually mentioning him by name, instead allowing public
gossip settle that matter. I too would be trawling the cyber and the tangible
trying to find my next catch.
His next catch seems to be ITV, who broadcast the segment where Phillip
Schofield handed a list of paedophilic names to David Cameron. He (McAlpine,
that is!) was believed to be on that list and it is rumoured a camera picked it
up. (Note the deliberate use of 'believed to be' and 'rumoured' in that
sentence.)
I would be absolutely fuming if I was on Schofield's camera-shot list, and
understandably McAlpine must be fuming about it. However, has anyone actually
seen names on the list? It may have been caught by a camera, but was that
particular camera part of the broadcast feed at the time?
These are crucial questions, because as things stand, despite an apology
aired on This Morning, nobody seems to have produced the offending screen
caption. I would have thought with the millions of feral Twitter users, ready
to shine a light on predatory paedophiles at any moment, the offending
screencap would have been doing the rounds within minutes of the broadcast
ending. I have not seen any image, and I practically live on Twitter at times!
We were told viewers might have seen the list. It seems nobody has seen it.
Someone should tell Lord McAlpine. This time, he is in the clear!
Except nobody will, as his legal team looks towards holding anyone and
everyone to account. It is an approach that risks McAlpine losing the goodwill
he has earned in the aftermath. I do not have the biggest Twitter feed in the
world, so it is not a representative tapestry of views, however I have noticed
a change of mood among those I follow.
When BBC Newsnight originally apologised, there was a mixture of sympathy
for McAlpine and irritation that a story about child abuse had been superseded
by poor journalism. The sympathy towards McAlpine has fallen away on my Twitter
feed, and I wonder if he should retreat from further action while he is ahead.
His reputation has ironically been enhanced, as a weak and feckless media
(in part brutalised by arcahic libel laws) made huge steps to apologise to him
and stress that he is not a paedophile. Many people were quick to sympathise
with him.
My second point regarding the post-Newsnight fallout is that I feel that
libel laws in the UK need to catch up with the reality of the Internet, or it
is going to destroy what is good about websites like Twitter.
Twitter enables lay members of the population to debate, discuss, talk,
have a laugh, sometimes troll, sometimes troll aggressively and sometimes troll
unlawfully. It is a big room where everyone can shout at anyone, with the
rather obvious drawback that whatever is shouted is rendered into cyber-memory.
Those words are there forever.
I am no legal expert, but my understanding is that British law is often cast
through precedent. There will be many precedents needed in light of
McAlpinegate if we are to prevent an online crisis of communication.
First of all, there will need to be an acceptance that although journalists
and writers publish on Twitter and other sites, so do people who are not used
to their copy being checked by lawyers before they hit the send button. (Note: Journalists have their work checked, and yet they have
been known to wrongly accuse – the Chris Jefferies case springs to mind.)
Any developments of law that see thousands of people with a few dozen
Twitter followers going to court will be to the detriment of ordinary people,
many of whom who already have enough to worry about in day-to-day life. Lord
McAlpine certainly would not have the same anxieties and worries that they face.
There is going to need to be a clear post-multimedia agreement governing
Internet use which does not penalise ordinary people. I cannot offer much help
to those who are directly tweeting allegations about people. As I already said,
I am not a legal expert, but I am now old enough to know by now that to call
someone a paedophile requires a stack of irrefutable evidence.
I can offer suggestions for those who have retweeted, or wrote implied
comments. By letter of the law, it would seem that those who retweet gain
responsibility for taking that tweet to their followers, but how many people
know this? Any retweet is clearly marked with the original author's name.
Ignorance being no defence is a harsh principle to reply here. This is not as
black and white as knowing that violence or sexual abuse is legally wrong.
This is important, because there may be no end to this. Courts could find
themselves being a revolving door for trivial Twitter actions, with judges
having to rule on who retweeted someone else's innuendo. The fact of the matter
is that people could potentially be sued for retweeting a comment by a
respected Guardian journalist originating from a rather dubious news report by
the respected (but heaven knows why!) BBC.
That is the reality, and it seems wrong because it is wrong.
I would suggest that judges become familiar with the Twitter architecture.
It is clear how the site works. If someone tweets something potentially
libellous with 100,000 followers in tow, then it is obvious that it is going to
be spread much wider. This puts the onus on the original author to get it
right. Retweeters do so with the original source of their tweet clearly marked,
and those retweeters who are clearly not media-savvy should not be punished for
not knowing the rules of engagement. If some of those who are media-aware (and
legally-aware) cannot get their Twitter activity right, what chance the rest of
us?
One logical conclusion is that people will not just be sued for tweets and
retweets, but they will also be sued for mentioning the names of high-profile
people who are tweeting potentially libellous material elsewhere on the
website. For example, Sally Bercow has come in for a lot of unfair criticism
for also being little more than careless about who she saw "trending" on the website (McAlpine,
since you ask). Assuming her tweets are deemed unlawful, what fate could befall
anyone who simply tweeted the text “I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today?"
Most of the "chattering classes" know who Sally Bercow is.
To find out what Sally Bercow has been writing, she is well-known enough to
be the first twitter result if anyone enters "Sally Bercow" into the
search box.
If I wrote a tweet "I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today,"
there is the argument that I am effectively signposting people to her page containing lots of questionable tweets.
This could happen to a lot of other people too. This is why the law as it
stands cannot work.
I also fear what the consequences of these issues could be for opinion. A
lot is written about high-profile Members of Parliament, for example, Nadine
Dorries, who has recently been a resident of a jungle somewhere on the other
side of the world. Dorries has always attracted a lot of criticism from those
on both the left and the right because of her unconventional approach to public
office.
Nobody can expect to be sued for describing her as a ghastly, awful woman,
as it is an opinion that is not necessarily damaging. However, some may feel
that Dorries has gone on a TV show to boost her own profile. They may argue
that she is deserting her constituents while doing that. They may believe she
is not fit to be an MP on that basis.
My fear is that Dorries may consider those viewpoints to be damaging and
contest them on that basis. If a portal is opened to sue people for expressing
such sentiments on Twitter, then the whole principle of debate is at risk.
Admittedly, criticising someone's fitness for office is not comparable to
calling someone a paedophile, but the recipient could still fight the Twitter
membership on the basis they feel it is damaging to their future employment
opportunities and reputation. There are stakes here that are much bigger than
context of one accusatory episode where this is located. The law must reflect
that.
For now, I believe everyone has to calm down a little. We must cool down
with the feral accusations. I can understand why feelings are running high
though. I used to think, and still do to some extent, that Brits are extremely
paranoid and irrational when it comes to the issue of paedophilia.
The Sun mixes up coverage of right-wing politics, international affairs and
celebrity gossip with regular titillation stories from the courts about
paedophile activity. If the stories look peculiarly out of place outside of the
context of a local newspaper, it is because they are. In some ways, the
newspaper's obsession with the issue is borderline creepy.
It has been known for innocent people to be attacked in the street because
they happen to resemble a paedophile mugshot published in the tabloid press.
This is not on.
I do believe though that Britain has a bigger paedophile problem than I
originally thought. In some ways, the Internet has flushed them to the surface
in much the same way as rain brings out slugs. Without being rumbled by an
eagle-eyed computer repair engineer, Gary Glitter would still be enjoying
regular paedophile holidays to the Far East, unchecked.
Shouting out the names of presumed paedophiles on Twitter is not the answer. We need to apply pressure to get these high-profile
child abuse cases re-opened and re-examined, so the offenders can be brought to
justice.
It is not just ordinary citizens, many of whom are worried parents and
people with good hearts, who need to cool down though. A little understanding
needs to be shown by those who are trying to control what is published on the
Internet.
Let us not forget the public was wound up by this story by the very classes
now trying to stamp down on Twitter activity – those in the media. The wind-up process
started earlier in the day of the Newsnight report into the child abuse scandal,
when someone connected to the report tweeted to tell people it was likely to be
screened and involved an old Tory.
The idea may not have been to cause feverish speculation, but it had that
effect.
When the news report went out and (quelle surprise) nobody was named,
that raised anger levels further. Bearing in mind Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards
paedophila, this outcome should not have surprised anyone, apart from maybe the
most moronic of TV executives.
So whereas the Twitter community needs to calm down a little now, so must also those who are the most condemning of us.
