A controversial legal ruling could end up making the Internet the easiest
medium to censor in Britain—and might force some websites to seek hosts
overseas. Last month, physicist Laurence Godfrey sued the service provider Demon
Internet over its role in hosting defamatory comments about him on a newsgroup.
Although the case was settled out of court, a legal decision made before the
settlement has British ISPs worried.
The Defamation Act 1996 normally gives ISPs the same protection as a
telephone company: they are seen as a “common carrier”, bearing no liability for
the messages that pass through their networks. But in the Demon case, the court
rejected this defence, arguing that since Demon had failed to take down the
defamatory material when Godfrey asked them, it had effectively revoked its
immunity. Demon later settled out of court, paying £15 000 damages to
Godfrey plus £200 000 costs. Initially, it seemed the case would have a
limited effect: rather than leading to ISPs censoring all content, commentators
reasoned that it would only be necessary to remove defamatory material promptly
when complaints were made.
But what no one counted on was ISPs’ reluctance to get involved in such
arguments—and the kind of steep damages and costs that Demon paid out.
Since the Demon/Godfrey settlement, two websites that merely ran the risk of
carrying something defamatory have lost their hosts. One was taken down because
a magazine complained that the site might post “potentially” libellous material.
Then the website of the Campaign against Censorship of the Internet in Britain
(www.liberty.org.uk/cacib/) was taken down after Godfrey objected to its
coverage of the ramifications of his case. CACIB is now hosted in the US. But
since sites rehosted offshore can still be seen via other ISPs, it remains to be
seen, say lawyers at London legal practice D J Freeman, whether every
ISP—even if it’s not the host—can be forced to bar access to a
site.
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