Simon McGarr is one of the few lawyer/solicitors out there that understands the law relating to bloggers and libel. The law varies dependant on whether bloggers are counted as editors, publishers, content owners etc… As soon as you moderate comments you become an editor of content published by others. You might be the publisher as you host the content (your writings and comments by others), but your ISP is also hosting for you.
If you don’t moderate the comments then you remain the pure conduit to deliver those to the wider world and there is less liability.
There’s a whole separate case relating to discussion forums, boards.ie was cited as an example as they have been threated with legal action. There is an argument that forums are similar to phone companies in that they provide the means for others to publicise (i.e. the wires that allow people to make calls) but they they can’t track every piece of content (they don’t listen to and judge every call).
Damien Blake responded to the talk by saying that bloggers shouldn’t get too paranoid about comments, they are an essential part of a blog and (almost) required for it’s survival - otherwise it’s simply you stating your thoughts there’s no ‘discussion’.
A disclaimer is a useful tool, it costs nothing to put one on your blog, but you can’t rely on just that, it’s just an additional layer of protection.
Mick Fealty pointed out that he was once given advice to “treat every threat seriously”, when he receives any sort of legal notification he immediately drops the content in question - it’s sometimes not worth the hassle and the battle. Simon pointed out that the cost of fighting a legal battle could easily be the cost of a house in Dublin, nevermind the damages you might end up owing at the end of that. Declaring yourself bankrupt is a possibility, but not one that you usually want to go into…
Tags: IrishBlogCon IrishBlogCon1 IrishElections2007
Guido Fawkes starts by telling us that he carries an Irish passport, why does everyone want to be Irish??
He started in Sep 2004, with a mission to make mischief and be a 21st century court jester, basing his image on a “Guy Fawkes” style character, aiming to disrupt the British Parliament.
Guido’s talk was aimed towards what makes a blog popular:
- Good writing, Novelty aspects
- Know your market
- Find a good subject, narrowcast
He likes to play with catching the journalists plagiarising his posts and with trying to catch out politicians when they lie. He feels that addressing things by injecting humour helps to reach his audience in a better fashion.
Guido reminds us that for the majority of people, there is no real money to be made from blogging, although he has joined a band of british bloggers with high-traffic sites to gain advertising, so the A-list bloggers can make as much money as a journalist, but it’s rare.
He also spoke at length about breaking news on his blog that the “traditional media” won’t touch with a bargepole, usually because there isn’t concrete proof…
Tags: IrishBlogCon IrishBlogCon1 IrishElections2007
Politicians who blog, chaired by Suzy Byrne brought us three blogging politicians;
Damien Blake, Letterkenny Town Council Member
Ciarán Cuffe, TD for Dún Laoghaire
Dominic Hannigan, Meath County Councillor
Damien, spoke about how he has blogged for the past 18 months, and how it proved useful during his term as mayor of Letterkenny. He tries to be open on his blog and gives his honest opinion about issues concerning his constituents. He has found that people are less interested in policy and the grand ideas of politicians, when they come to you they want to know “what will you do for me?”. He also believes that blogging leads to a clearer line of communication, you don’t have journalists changing the tone of your post press release by quoting you out of turn…
Ciarán spoke about how he has always followed the advancement of technology and how blogs allow politicians to communicate with new audiences that may not participate in the traditional “dead tree” media. He believes that his blog allows him to be more free with his opinions and casual in the way he communicates.
Dominic admits that he has only been blogging since March. He is involved in the run for a marginal seat in Meath for the Dáil. He emphasised that he does not normally moderate his comments unless they involve libel/slander. When he deleted a comment earlier in September (over the Laytown school issue) he immediatly incurred the wrath of the blogging population. I guess a key learning from that is, explain, explain, explain….
Personal Opinion: There was a bit of an air of a pissing contest between the three politicians… “I post and get loads of comments very quickly”, “I get lots of hits”… although they do get kudos for asking for feedback from the attendees to explain what they could do better on their blogs…
Tags: IrishBlogCon IrishBlogCon1 IrishElections2007
So why are we here today? Why blog the election?
The Blogging the Election Conference kicked off today in the Digital Exchange with Richard Delevan (Business Editor of The Sunday Tribune) posing that question to the crowd. I answered with, to me, the most simplistic answer – “because we blog everything�. But really, why bother? he asked – what influence will bloggers really have?
Richard then went on to talk about how the Netroots Campaign has had such a great effect in America, and how has been used heavily in the US Senate campaign race between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman for the Connecticut Senate seat.
So why is Ireland different? For a number of reasons, one of the primary ones being that Ireland is known for being a place where everyone knows everyone else - you engage an Irish person that you have just met in conversation and within 10 mins you can find some common link, some person that you both know… IMHO, this is something that has quite an effect within the irish blogs population - after attending BarCampIreland last weekend, I saw quite a surge in traffic to my blog, and I’m expecting something similar again this weekend…
Another major reason is something that is never far from the mind of Damien Mulley, which is the lack of broadband penetration within Ireland - a large part of the population goes onto the internet via dialup and (usually) unless you have a fast connection you are less likely to spend time browsing around finding new content, you rely more on the major sites and links that people send you…
OK, this is just the first installment of today, more to come and I’ll be joined by Bernie Goldbach for a few guest posts…
Tags: IrishBlogCon IrishBlogCon1 IrishElections2007
