By Sunny Hundal
April 14 2013
There has been criticism that the current definition in the Crime & Courts Bill (the vehicle for this law) – makes a vague reference to excluding ‘small blogs’. This criticism is misleading as we were told weeks ago this was simply place-holder legislation while a more rigorous definition was found.
On Tuesday morning I was part of a small round-table meeting at the DCMS, to discuss web regulation. It was one of several they’ve had with bloggers and organisations. As I reported earlier, the DCMS is currently trying to draw up a framework so newspaper websites (or major entities that go entirely online in a decade’s time) can still be regulated, while bloggers are not.
There has been criticism that the current definition in the Crime & Courts Bill (the vehicle for this law) – makes a vague reference to excluding ‘small blogs’. This criticism is misleading as we were told weeks ago this was simply place-holder legislation while a more rigorous definition was found.
The politics roughly goes like this: I’ve been told repeatedly by Labour’s media team that they are absolutely not interested in regulating blogs. They didn’t realise the definition they used before the place-holder would catch big blogs, and quickly moved to change it once some of us pointed this out. The biggest resistance to change apparently comes from Maria Miller’s team, who see this as a distracting sideshow. The Lib Dems seem to be curiously silent. But since the Royal Charter on regulation is meant to have assent from all parties, the DCMS is trying to see how our concerns can be accommodated.
So what did we ask from the DCMS? Roughly, two things:
First, we said the earlier definition was too broad, and it would have a chilling effect online on free speech if people were unsure they could be hit with ‘exemplary’ damages in libel cases. We wanted a simple definition that was clear to understand, and set the bar high enough that the vast majority of web publishers would be excluded. Websites should be able to opt-in to an independent regulator rather than have to be excluded through a legal definition.
In our meeting the most popular proposal was to draw the line at the definition of an SME, so any entity with a turnover of less than £6.5m or less than 50 employees would be excluded. Another alternative was to include any company that was VAT registered (over turnover of £79,000).
The DCMS reps said their legal advice had indicated the SME definition would allow big companies loopholes to avoid regulation. I don’t buy this excuse – I think it’s more that they think the SME bar is too high. We asked them to publish this legal advice and they agreed to do so. Watch out for this.
The second request tied in with the first: that if the bar is changed and set higher, we wanted the option for smaller entities to be able to join the regulator and have access to the benefits (arbitration services). So I requested that they also consider changing the wording so the goodies weren’t just limited to a ‘relevant publisher’. If the definition was set to a higher bar, then smaller entities would be legally excluded from the benefits even if they joined.
The DCMS said they would consider both proposals and submit them to ministers. The deadline is less than two weeks away so this process won’t be long.
Originally published by Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal
April 14 2013
There has been criticism that the current definition in the Crime & Courts Bill (the vehicle for this law) – makes a vague reference to excluding ‘small blogs’. This criticism is misleading as we were told weeks ago this was simply place-holder legislation while a more rigorous definition was found.
On Tuesday morning I was part of a small round-table meeting at the DCMS, to discuss web regulation. It was one of several they’ve had with bloggers and organisations. As I reported earlier, the DCMS is currently trying to draw up a framework so newspaper websites (or major entities that go entirely online in a decade’s time) can still be regulated, while bloggers are not.
There has been criticism that the current definition in the Crime & Courts Bill (the vehicle for this law) – makes a vague reference to excluding ‘small blogs’. This criticism is misleading as we were told weeks ago this was simply place-holder legislation while a more rigorous definition was found.
The politics roughly goes like this: I’ve been told repeatedly by Labour’s media team that they are absolutely not interested in regulating blogs. They didn’t realise the definition they used before the place-holder would catch big blogs, and quickly moved to change it once some of us pointed this out. The biggest resistance to change apparently comes from Maria Miller’s team, who see this as a distracting sideshow. The Lib Dems seem to be curiously silent. But since the Royal Charter on regulation is meant to have assent from all parties, the DCMS is trying to see how our concerns can be accommodated.
So what did we ask from the DCMS? Roughly, two things:
First, we said the earlier definition was too broad, and it would have a chilling effect online on free speech if people were unsure they could be hit with ‘exemplary’ damages in libel cases. We wanted a simple definition that was clear to understand, and set the bar high enough that the vast majority of web publishers would be excluded. Websites should be able to opt-in to an independent regulator rather than have to be excluded through a legal definition.
In our meeting the most popular proposal was to draw the line at the definition of an SME, so any entity with a turnover of less than £6.5m or less than 50 employees would be excluded. Another alternative was to include any company that was VAT registered (over turnover of £79,000).
The DCMS reps said their legal advice had indicated the SME definition would allow big companies loopholes to avoid regulation. I don’t buy this excuse – I think it’s more that they think the SME bar is too high. We asked them to publish this legal advice and they agreed to do so. Watch out for this.
The second request tied in with the first: that if the bar is changed and set higher, we wanted the option for smaller entities to be able to join the regulator and have access to the benefits (arbitration services). So I requested that they also consider changing the wording so the goodies weren’t just limited to a ‘relevant publisher’. If the definition was set to a higher bar, then smaller entities would be legally excluded from the benefits even if they joined.
The DCMS said they would consider both proposals and submit them to ministers. The deadline is less than two weeks away so this process won’t be long.
Originally published by Liberal Conspiracy