FC: Weekly column: Council of Europe wants to regulate Euro-bloggers

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Council of Europe's "right of reply" for the Internet draft:
http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/media/1_Intergovernmental_Co-operation/02_Draft_texts/MM-PUBLIC(2003)002%20E%20Right%20of%20reply.asp#TopOfPage

---

http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1017333.html

   Why Europe still doesn't get the Internet
   By Declan McCullagh
   June 16, 2003, 4:00 AM PT

   One of the finest days in Internet law dawned on June 12, 1996, when
   U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell wrote an opinion that was
   remarkable for its clarity and prescience. At the time, Dalzell was
   serving on a three-judge panel that rejected the absurd Communications
   Decency Act as a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of free
   expression.

   Dalzell recognized that the U.S. government's true fear of the
   Internet was not indecency or obscenity, but hypothetical worries
   about how "too much speech occurs in that medium." Dalzell and
   eventually the Supreme Court realized that the best way to foster the
   soon-to-be spectacular growth of the Internet was to reduce government
   regulation--not to increase it.

   Unfortunately, Europeans still haven't quite figured that out. The
   Council of Europe--an influential quasi-governmental body that drafts
   conventions and treaties--is meeting on Monday to finalize a proposal
   that veers in exactly the opposite direction. (It boasts 45 member
   states in Europe, with the United States, Canada, Japan and Mexico
   participating as non-voting members. Its budget is about $200 million
   a year, paid for by member governments.)

   The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news
   organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even
   Web logs (or "blogs"), must offer a "right of reply" to those whom an
   organization criticizes.

   With clinical precision, the council's bureaucracy had decided exactly
   what would be required. Some excerpts from its proposal:

   o  "The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place
   for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time
   during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in
   any case, no less than for 24 hours."

   o  Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. "It may be considered
   sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it" from
   the spot of the original mention.

   o  "So long as the contested information is available online, the
   reply should be attached to it, for example through a clearly visible
   link."

   o  Long replies are fine. "There should be flexibility regarding the
   length of the reply, since there are (fewer) capacity limits for
   content than (there are) in off-line media."

   [...remainder snipped...]




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