If You Fisk Me There, I'll Fisk You Back

Politech links a noxious Council of Europe draft proposal mandating a "right of reply" for the victims of online media criticism. That includes folks targeted on blogs.

In a sense, this isn't quite as noxious as the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine," which (until the 80s) kept broadcast media bland by mandating the same right of reply there. TV and radio time are expensive, so that requirement meant that it often wasn't worthwhile to air anything controversial. Hyperlinking is cheaper and easier than airing counterpoint commentary, but compelled speech is still offensive, and for a time-crunched individual blogger, the need to track and link responses could certainly be burdensome. Ultimately, this will probably just end up being a boon to servers based outside Europe.