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.

Comments

[Grant Gould]

Hyperlinking is cheaper and easier than airing counterpoint commentary

Actually, if I read it right, the draft specifically says that hyperlinking to the response is inadequate.
--G

[Julian]

I was relying on this, from Declan's piece:

Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. "It may be considered sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it" from the spot of the original mention.

[Grant Gould]

Sure enough. I misread; I apologize.
--G

[Franklin Harris]

Hmmm. The Draft proposal is now coming up 404 File Not Found.

[Jim]

Not sure how that last post is relavent to this discussion; however I think you could apply this same logic to people wearing obnoxious T-shirts in public. Somehow I don't think you'll see Commercial Alert go after people wearing Megadeath t-shirts, even though it's an 'assault on our attention".

[Anonymous]

Gary Ruskin, director of Portland-based Commercial Alert, an advertising watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader, said homeless people acting as billboards should be paid minimum wage, or else they are being exploited. And he complained that the practice adds to ad clutter.

"People don't want to get hammered with an ad every time they turn their head," he said. "Most advertising is either somewhat of a lie or deceptive, and it's an assault on our attention."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/06/16/national1254EDT0572.DTL

[cialis online]

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.