It is not simply a question of regulation, it is also one of protection, for citizens using this media in an uncertain legal and regulatory landscape.

I was reminded of the issue by Index on Censorship this week. The organisation has produced a policy note ahead of the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, ‘Standing up to threats to digital freedom’ [PDF], which addresses issues around online freedom of expression and in particular, online and independent media (including ‘citizen’ journalists). Its authors (Marta Cooper, Kirsty Hughes, Rohan Jayasekera and Padraig Reidy) argue:

Today more than ever, blogs and other social media publications allow the public to share and receive information, actively participate in government and get their voices heard. And as the mainstream media sheds reporting staff in a declining market, the historic role of the press in observing, reporting and calling authority to account increasingly falls to these citizen journalists.

But without the protection and legal resources of mainstream media institutions, citizen media can be easy targets for defamation actions and physical intimidation. This year Reporters without Borders recorded 123 cases where “netizens” were jailed for their online opinions in 12 countries. Nearly 70 are held in China alone. Nearly 40 Syrian citizen reporters have been killed covering the fighting in their country. Even in the US, historic First Amendment free speech rights for bloggers are under threat by federal court rulings that say they are not entitled to the same legal protection that other members of the press enjoy.

As surveillance, filtering, cyber-attacks, website blocking and filtering, content manipulation and imprisonment of bloggers increase, human rights defenders need direct support in helping them better manage their physical and digital security risks in ways that are practical, effective and relevant to their local political environment.
Online and citizen journalists must be given the same protection as mainstream and offline media organisations [pages 8-9].

This extract raises interesting questions: what kind of protection and “direct support”? How could legal resources be made available outside the mainstream media? Does media content labelled ‘journalism’ or ‘journalist’ warrant special protection (citizen, or otherwise)?

I looked at the issue of legal protection for bloggers in 2010 but the landscape has changed fast in the United Kingdom since then, with new types of prosecutions under s127 of the Communications Act 2003, for example. The issue may well fall outside the remit of the Leveson report, but it merits serious attention.

It features Joshua Rozenberg’s interview with Mr Justice Eady.

Parts of it echo Eady’s previous speeches (for example, when he opened City University London’s Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism in 2010 – PDF link).

But Eady’s comments about the balancing act between ECHR Articles 8 and 10 are just as relevant this year, and need to be re-examined in light of the super injunction furore.

Two quotes are pasted below, but you can find the interview at this link – and it’s worth reading in full.

On ill (and over) represented media law coverage

…”I think it’s inevitable because the press are interested in the press’s own affairs. So privacy and libel get much more coverage than personal injury, commercial cases or even public law, all of which are just as important if not more important”.

‘There are lots of judgments that have been criticised where it’s quite apparent that people haven’t read them. But there’s nothing you can do about that: the press office aren’t going to give them a spoonful of sugar to make it easier. And if they want to criticise the judgment, they will – whatever it says. But I don’t really bother to read that stuff.”

On the libel-privacy overlap

…“They interlink because they’re both part of the human personality — or, as they tend to call it in Strasbourg, human integrity. So one can see why Article 8 would have them both under its umbrella – although originally, of course, it didn’t. It’s a very recent development that libel has been brought in under Article 8 – not in the convention, obviously, but in case law.”

Journalist and author Simon Singh, who successfully fought a libel action brought against him by the BCA (they dropped the case before it reached full trial), is encouraging online writers to join a mass blog, calling for people to sign the petition for libel reform, which already has over 50,000 names  on it.

The anniversary follows last week’s Reframing Libel event, at which academics, lawyers and journalists debated the finer points of Lord Lester’s bill (currently passing through Parliament) and made their own libel reform suggestions, some of which you can read about here.

Live blog at this link.