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Original poster

New Defamation Act (or, congrats to Justine)

3 replies

MooncupGoddess · 26/04/2013 16:56

Following much hard work and campaigning, in which our dear ceo was heavily involved, the Defamation Bill has been passed. This significantly improves Britain's antiquated legal framework surrounding libel issues, and means that MN will no longer face collapse when I post my hilarious new Gina Ford joke in Chat.

www.libelreform.org/news

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MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 26/04/2013 17:01

Yay! Grin

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 26/04/2013 17:11

@TheDoctrineOfSnatch

I don't know what SIOB is though. Anyone?

Sharp intake of breath. Often associated with SWMNBN...

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 26/04/2013 17:43

Well that's mighty kind of you folks - it was very much a team effort - both our end (Rowan's been to an awful lot of meetings) and of course with all the other organisations involved - Sense about Science, PEN, Index on Censorship to name a few. But it does feel nice to have a new law finally after being involved in the campaign for so long Smile.

We don't, by the way, know every detail yet but the broad principle is one that the author is responsible for what they write. So when a complainant re libel contacts us we will have a few days to contact the poster and ask him/her whether they wish to stand by the post or remove it. If they wish to stand by it then the legal responsibility for it will become theirs. Right now we just tend to remove posts whenever we are contacted (because we can't be sure of the facts).

The other significant thing is that companies have to be able to prove serious financial harm to bring a case.

So broadly I think it's good for freedom of speech.

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