Defamation Bill

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I made my remark about the case being hypothetical to avoid being drawn into arguments about that case, which is rather familiar to people who know this subject. There are arguments about how far the plaintiff had connections with this country and a reputation here, but as it happens I was producing the example of a Saudi and an American purely hypothetically and I do not think I should get drawn into the merits of a past case. My hon. Friend, who is an expert in this field, rapidly understood why those particular nationalities had leapt to my mind when I gave the example.

Alongside these adjustments in the law to help support freedom of expression, I want to ensure that effective remedies are available for those defamed. Often what most concerns claimants is not financial compensation, but meaningful public clarification that a story was wrong. We have therefore included provisions in clause 12 extending existing powers to enable the court to order publication of a summary of its judgment. Parties will be encouraged to reach agreement, where possible, on the contents of the summary and issues such as where, when and how it is to be published. However, in the absence of agreement, the court will be empowered to settle the wording of the summary and give directions on those other matters.

In addition to protecting freedom of expression and reputation, the Bill seeks to modernise the law. Our biggest difficulty has been in relation to the web, the internet and so on. Currently, website operators are in principle liable as publishers for everything that appears on their site, even though the content is often determined by their users, but most operators are not in a position to know whether the material posted by their users is defamatory or not, and very often, faced with a complaint, they will immediately remove material. The Government want a libel regime for the internet that makes it possible for people to protect their reputations effectively, but which ensures that information online cannot be easily censored by casual threats of litigation against website operators.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Clarke]

Surely; then I will get on to our proposed approach to that rather difficult problem.

[Steve Rotheram]

I broadly support the Bill, especially clause 5, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is explaining. Can he give any comfort to the parents of Georgia Varley, a Liverpool youngster who was tragically killed and whose family and friends set up an RIP website, which trolls then used to abuse and disparage her death in a sickening and vile way? Can he outline specifically the proposals to tackle such abuse by internet trolls who hide behind the anonymity of a computer to abuse those remembered on RIP websites?

[Mr Clarke]

I cannot possibly comment on an individual case and individual possible action. I anticipate that the difficulty may be that the defaming of a deceased person always gives rise to questions of whether any action is possible. Trolling is an extremely unpleasant, curious activity which some very nasty people appear to be going into. There have already been quite a lot of prosecutions for trolling, but we think the public are entitled to proper protection against it.

Our proposed approach, under clause 5, will provide website operators with a defence against libel, provided they follow a procedure to put complainants in touch with the author of allegedly defamatory material. This will strengthen freedom of expression by ensuring that material is not taken down without the author being given an opportunity to defend it. Conversely, it will strengthen protections by enabling people who have had their reputation seriously harmed online to take action against the real author and bring proceedings against them if the matter cannot be resolved by other means.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Joint Committee looked into that issue and wanted a first hurdle before a corporation could sue. The Government decided not to accept that recommendation. He raised the example of corporations. The use of defamation laws by corporations has a chilling effect, especially given the inequality of arms. I am sure that that issue will be teased out and clarified in Committee, given the expertise that it will have.

As has been said, clauses 2 to 7 set out the defences that will be available to a claim for defamation. Some simply replace and codify common-law defences, while others provide new defences. I wish to touch on some of those defences.

Clause 4 is intended to address responsible publication of matters of public interest, the so-called Reynolds defence. That is a defence of responsible journalism in the public interest. The clause will abolish Reynolds and codify the factors that a court may consider when judging whether a defendant has acted responsibly.

I am aware that some groups, including the Libel Reform Campaign, are unhappy with the clause, believing that the Government have not gone far enough, that the defence is too time-consuming and expensive, and that it is unreliable because defendants are often required to clear a series of complex hurdles to gain legal protection. They also believe that it will simply freeze the Reynolds defence at the current point in time. There is genuine concern that subsequent case law may develop based on what is in the Bill. Would a “son of Reynolds”, as it were, be in the best interests of our defamation laws? We will need further debate and discussion on that important issue, and I look forward to that in Committee.

As has been said, clause 5 is intended to address defamation involving websites. It creates a new defence for operators of a website when a defamation action is brought against them in respect of a statement posted on that website by a third party.

[Steve Rotheram]

Despite what the Secretary of State said earlier, only a handful of people have been convicted of trolling. It is difficult to prosecute, because of the gaps in the relevant legislation, the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the Communications Act 2003. Does my right hon. Friend believe that clause 5 will do what it is intended to do and discourage and deter people who post sickening messages on RIP websites?

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving the important and outrageous example of people being trolled. It is worth saying for clarity that the clause deals only with defamation cases. I would not want the public to think that it was a panacea for all sorts of outrageous behaviour that takes place on the internet. He is right to remind us that other legislation, including criminal law, needs to be updated to allow authorities to take action against those who troll against innocent victims. We are all aware of the case of our colleague, the hon. Member who had outrageous words said against her, leading to a successful prosecution. If there is a lacuna, it needs to be filled, but we should be clear that clause 5 deals simply with cases in which a defamation claim is made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I have to attend an all-party parliamentary group annual general meeting, so I apologise if I have to leave before the next speech has finished.

I particularly welcome clause 5 and I shall speak mainly to it, addressing the issues of social media, trolls and the damage that can be caused to individuals, particularly to young people.

Some in public life accept the consequences of engaging with social media. For many of us in this House, our job and our way of life necessitate engagement with such media, but we are, I suppose, big, bad and ugly enough to be able to deal with the consequences.

It was interesting that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) highlighted issues concerning children and deceased individuals, and the fact that an estate cannot have any redress in internet trials of children and young people. I have experienced a couple of cases myself. As the hon. Gentleman also said, there are already laws, but there are two types of internet trolls. There are those who know very well indeed how to negate those laws and how to dodge them so that they do not get prosecuted. They troll and post on the internet in a way that ensures they are protected from prosecution. I know this from people who have contacted me and from two police investigations that I instigated. There are some very clever people out there. There are also people—otherwise sensible, learned and normal people—who, when they sit in front of a computer and veil themselves in a cloak of anonymity, can turn into a troll or almost some kind of monster. These are the people who occasionally get caught and are occasionally prosecuted, but it does not happen very often.

Opening my front door one morning, I was surprised to find three Bedfordshire police officers lying on their backs with their faces under my car. This was because a student from Oxford had posted on the internet that he was going to bomb it. The Bedfordshire police were assiduous, but at the point of prosecution I decided not to go ahead. I considered the fact that a 20-year-old sitting in front of a computer who suddenly made a spontaneous comment possibly did not deserve a lifetime criminal record for a foolish act. I thought that his having been contacted by the police was probably enough of a deterrent to stop him doing such a thing again. Given that this was a student from Oxford, one imagines that he was an intelligent individual.

In another case, a man who I believe worked in the civil service whose wife was pregnant posted on the internet that he would like to lock me in a car, set it on fire and watch my flesh melt from my bones. I thought that was pretty graphic, but again I chose not to prosecute, as this was a family man with a good career whose wife was about to have a baby and I thought that the police’s intervention might be enough to prevent him from doing something similar again. As a Member of Parliament, I accept that when I speak about various campaigns and issues, it may elicit this kind of response from people who do not agree with my point of view.

Other people are not in the public eye and do not expect to receive the condemnation that we receive for the positions we take. Some people spend their life building a reputation—it might not be a major one, just one in their field, perhaps that of a teacher, a health worker or someone working commercially—based on their integrity, expertise and ability. In building that reputation, they also build their own persona and status, and identify themselves through whom they have become.

When a newspaper prints a story about an individual, or there is an altercation between two individuals, all that those people identify themselves with—all that they believe themselves to be—can be destroyed by one posting by an internet troll. For some people that is incredibly serious, and carries psychological consequences. Their identities may be challenged to the extent that they doubt that they are who they thought they were. There is a famous example of, I believe, a European Prime Minister who suffered and committed suicide, because the person he had built his life up to be had been suddenly taken away from him by what people had written on the internet. There are many consequences about which we never hear, so we sometimes do not know what people have to deal with on a daily basis.

Let me give another example, from my own experience. I was on a live television show this morning. The first question that the presenter asked me was, “Is it true that your ex-husband gave you an ultimatum—that if you did not give up politics, he would leave you?” My ex-husband is quite poorly. Anyway, he would not have dared to give me such an ultimatum, and the fact is that he did not. I was asked the question because of the lie that someone had posted on the internet seven years ago. My ex-husband is actually quite ill, but I could not filter the question on live television. That is one of the consequences of indiscriminate postings, comments left on websites that can be regurgitated years later.

[Steve Rotheram]

The hon. Lady has raised a very important point. There are people I, being a scouser, describe as idiots, who get involved in this sort of activity thinking that it is a bit of banter, which it is not. However, there are also people who are professional trollers. There is something called The Trolling Academy, which gives advice, specifically “Target MPs”. I have been targeted, and I think that others have as well. Someone said on Twitter that they wished I had AIDS, for instance. As the hon. Lady says, it is fine for those of us with thick skins, but there are ordinary, innocent people out there whose lives are detrimentally affected by trolls. That is why I suggested that clause 5 might need some additional work.

[Nadine Dorries]

As always, the hon. Gentleman has made an excellent point. I have discovered that Twitter has a block button. All that you need to do is block someone, and I do it all the time. A parody account called Blocked By Nadine has been set up on Twitter because I have blocked so many people. However, I think that most social media networking sites are very responsible. They respond to complaints and work with the police. Although clause 5 is welcome, I think that there is a degree of responsibility among the more well-known and well-used sites, where people are very much aware of the professional trolling that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and of the fact that MPs are being targeted. Besides, there is always the block button: we do not have to see what anyone has said if we do not want to.

One of the big issues is how clause 5 will protect young people from the cyber-bullying which I am sure we have all heard about from parents in our constituencies. Young people are bullied on the internet—on Facebook, and on other social networking sites. That was always going to be a consequence of the establishment of social media. As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), technology of that kind has moved way ahead of UK law. It has left the law wanting, because it is unable to protect some of the most vulnerable people, particularly the young. The right hon. Gentleman also said that we might not have a chance to debate the matter again for another generation. I hope that that is not true, because technology will continue to move apace. In fact, I almost feel that this legislation should be returned to the House annually, because technology will continue to develop and new problems and challenges will regularly arise.

As I know from constituency cases, young people without the ability to deal with insults, defamation and the rubbishing of their young and precious reputations on the internet are far more vulnerable than any adult. When someone posts a message on the internet saying that a certain young girl is fat and ugly and so forth, it can take the victim a lifetime to get over those words. They are often not words that somebody would say to another person without hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, which is why they use an anonymous persona on the internet. In some cases they might be known, however, but what is said on the internet is like sending an e-mail, which is different from saying the words directly to the other person; it is much easier to type something and press “send”, and then it is gone, but what has been written can have huge consequences.

As we know, in some areas of the country there have been suicide pacts and groups of suicides among teenagers, and social networking and social media have played a part in all those cases. It is probably best not to go into the details, however. We must put in place a mechanism by which social networking sites and websites can be contacted so that they respond to such cases quickly.

I rose to speak in order to highlight some of the problems that exist, based on my own experience and the experiences of some of my constituents, and to explain why I believe clause 5 is important. This Bill is now before the House, but we must not wait another 10 years or another generation before we look at this matter again. I ask the Secretary of State to make a commitment that it will be looked at more regularly, as the internet is constantly evolving and developing and young people and the vulnerable must be given protection.