Libel law reform

English libel laws are notorious. Big companies with inconvenient critics that they want to silence use the English law of defamation to do so, even if neither party is British. Bloggers whose host is in the UK have to warn their commenters against mentioning certain litigious organisations. Scientists, doctors and journalists who want to follow the evidence risk time-consuming and expensive court cases. Latest news: big internet players complain about the definition of "publication".

Representatives of Facebook, Yahoo, AOL (UK), the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), and Mumsnet have written to David Cameron calling for the forthcoming Defamation Bill to protect discussion on the internet. Yahoo!, Facebook, AOL, Mumsnet and ISPA write to the Prime Minister to call for libel law reform has the text of the letter and links to other coverage.

You can read and sign the Libel Reform Campaign's petition (key paragraph: "We the undersigned, in England and beyond, urge politicians to support a bill for major reforms of the English libel laws now, in the interests of fairness, the public interest and free speech.") at the signup page.