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Originally Posted by lostalex
Disgusting affront to the the freedom of speech and freedom of the internet. Europe has very disturbing ideas about the freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech means the right to offend.
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Very disturbing.
This side of the water, we tend to have a more civilised view.
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Last week, a British woman won a court order forcing Facebook to identify users who had harassed her.
Nicola Brookes had been falsely branded a paedophile and drug dealer by users - known as trolls - on Facebook.
Facebook, which did not contest the order, will now reveal the IP addresses of people who had abused her so she can prosecute them.
The new powers, to be added to the Defamation Bill, will make this process far less time-consuming and costly, the government said.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said the measures would mean an end to "scurrilous rumour and allegation" being posted online without fear of adequate punishment.
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In English Law :
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Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. This can be also any disparaging statement made by one person about another, which is communicated or published, whether true or false, depending on legal state. In Common Law it is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).
A person who harms another's reputation may be referred to as a "famacide", "defamer", or "slanderer". The Latin phrase famosus libellus means a libelous writing.
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So the addition to the Defamation Bill merely adds elements of the internet to the list of "outlets" which can be prosecuted by the individual
to protect their rights