The end of the web troll?

[exostrike]

The Uk government has unveilded legislation aimed at ending the curse of the internet troll by forcing Internet firms to release their details if they feel a defamatory statement has been made about them. However privacy groups fear that this will lead to internet companies releaseing details without consideration rather than risk legal action.

Personally I do feel that tackling trolls is a good thing to do (any chance we can extend it to Xbox live users?) however I do agree that such an idea an easily be abused.

So what does people think about this idea?

BBC News - Websites to be forced to identify trolls under new measures (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18404621)

[Ja'k Dawsiin]

i smell the devious and evil hand of ACTA/SOPA/PIPA somewhere in the details...

[exostrike]

The leglistration will be include in a existing draft defamation bill so expect some rangling, but the intial report for the bill suggests that corporations have to prove substantial financial loss from a libel comment. Neither can it sue for loss of good will or good name nor claim financial loss via a fall in share price. So it appears that they can't sue pirates for libel.

For anyone partically bored there's the link to the report: Draft Defamation Bill - Joint Committee on the Draft Defamation Bill (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtdefam/203/20307.htm#a44)

[Aihwa]

We may have problems, but the whole "Freedom of speech" thing in America is quite nice.

[The Silver Stag]

Isn't going to work, they're just playing with semantics. Somebody with an outrageously different opinion isn't necessarily a troll, maybe just a bit of a nutcase. Sounds like a smokescreen for censorship :/

EDIT Also, there must be millions of trolls on the internet, not enough money to pay people to handle stuff like this and the prisons are full. This is actually laughable.

[Ja'k Dawsiin]

there must be millions of trolls on the internet









yes...yes there are,probably more.:disgust:

[Foxhound]

This is a blatant disregard for freedom of speech. If we let them get away with this what is next? They could easily claim anyone is a Troll and use it for political gain.

Trolls are a Moral problem. And the government can't fix moral problems.

As for people concerned about Cyber bullying. Might I recommend you power off your computer and go outside? No one is forcing you to go to websites or play online games.

In short this bill is a front to remove more freedoms from the people.

[RD-701]

Of course a government could stop moral problems... if they were a boot stomping on a human face, for long enough...

Sounds like it'd either be:
(a) Too open to abuse.
(b) Too difficult for someone to actually use in practice, rendering it a fairly useless law.

To be honest, I'd be far more worried about possibility (a) than possibility (b).


As for people concerned about Cyber bullying. Might I recommend you power off your computer and go outside? No one is forcing you to go to websites or play online games.

Sadly it just isn't that easy. If it was, it wouldn't happen.

[exostrike]

In the truth the new law is a typical knee jerk reaction by the british government after this rather high profile legal case: BBC News - Facebook to release ID of users who abused woman online (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-18351855), rather than some sinister plan to remove freedom of speech. Sure the law will be in truth impractical, but it gets the government points with voters.

I also better explain something about libel in UK law, part of UK law has what is known as "Slander actionable" which automatically result legal punishment such as "imputing a crime punishable with imprisonment" in a claim like in the link, paedophile. So in theory the kind of action the government is hoping to tackle is in fact simply extending existing laws across the internet. THough of course this also brings the rest of the law into the internet, though people are already being sued in the UK over internet comments with libel tourism. However as the overall bill will offer in a large change of defamation law in the UK this may soon be meaningless.

[tm20]

As for people concerned about Cyber bullying. Might I recommend you power off your computer and go outside? No one is forcing you to go to websites or play online games.


if you're getting bullied on online games and its butthurting, then you have failed at life

[Wind12]

Yea you can't make it illegal to be an a-hole, trolls are nasty, but that is no excuse to censor the internet. Even with trolls the internet is a great place in the gov't shouldn't mess with it.