Media law and ethics » Public Legal Education

BBC College of Journalism: Social media and the law – a case to regulate or educate?

jtownend — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:35:40 +0000

The BBC College of Journalism has published a selection of views on the CPS Public consultation on its Interim Guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media, which closes on 13 March 2013. My contribution is below and the others, including John Cooper QC, Jon Harman, learning design and media director at London’s University of Law, Sue Llewellyn, media trainer, and David Banks, journalist and media law consultant, can be found here.

We’re in a contradictory and disconcerting place at the moment. Three years ago we saw the abolition of criminal libel and blasphemy and the word ‘insulting’ is to be removed from the Public Order Act.

However, there has been increasing use of criminal law in relation to social media – sometimes in disproportionate ways, as in the ‘Twitter joke’ trial. Concerns have also been raised about the consistency and severity of sentencing, especially in relation to sick jokes and political – albeit distasteful – comment.

It appears, as Professor Ian Cram has argued, that much energy is spent on ‘shoehorning new practices and behaviour into existing legal categories’. It is encouraging that the CPS now acknowledges these tensions with its sensible, if vague, interim guidelines.

A more nuanced consideration of social media use and the public interest is certainly needed. But there is another area to emphasise too: education. As the CPS rightly identifies, children ‘may not appreciate the potential harm and seriousness of their communications and a prosecution is rarely likely to be in the public interest’.

That lack of appreciation may apply to many adults too. Better public legal education around media is needed to prevent genuinely harmful communication acting against the public interest, especially in relation to breaches of reporting restrictions, threats of violence and harassment.

via BBC – Blogs – College of Journalism – Social media and the law: a case to regulate or educate?.

Legislation: open the data and enable participation

jtownend — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:27:50 +0000

Last Friday I attended an excellent and inspiring presentation by John Sheridan, head of legislation services at the National Archives, at the Open Data Institute. ODI’s Kathryn Corrick has helpfully uploaded both the audio and his presentation. The Indigo Trust has blogged about it here. The key issue that interests me is linking open legislation to open case law, but that is a big and complicated topic, which deserves its own blog post. In the meantime, catch up here with John’s introduction and discussion around ‘legislation as data’:

View this document on Scribd

Media PLE: Educating the public about the legal risks of social media use

jtownend — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:07:41 +0000

This morning’s Radio 4 Today programme raised the issue of social media users’ “ignorance” around legal issues, with the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, who has today issued Interim guidelines on “prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media”.

Ignorance is no defence, but given that Starmer suggested that a leading QC hadn’t thought about the sophistication of the issues (a charge which the lawyer in question is robustly defending – on Twitter, of course), what hope for the public at large?

I’ve been interested in the idea of public legal education (PLE) for social media users for a while (see my blogger project in 2010, for example) – initially around civil law (defamation, privacy, contempt) and more recently, criminal offences (Malicious Communications Act 1988; Communications Act 2003; Contempt of Court Act 1981).

The court order issue, mentioned on Radio 4 this morning, is the really interesting one for me. In 2010, I wrote about the lack of clarity around blogging and reporting restrictions; the situation hasn’t much improved since then, although people are probably more aware of the risks through increased media discussion.

Jon Harman (@colmmu) is also interested in this area, and has posted some quick thoughts on his Tumblr blog:

On one hand whilst “ignorance” is not a defence, do we have an education system currently capable of raising digital literacy and the laws that relate to it, do we need to do more in public legal education or even state education given that most people do not actively seek to break these laws, they are just unaware? When we had restricted systems of publishing we had mechanisms to filter and check, we had the basis of journalism training wedded to media and publishing laws – but that’s not possible in this new landscape

His suggestion? A legal Siri … Read in full here.