{"id":991,"date":"2017-01-18T11:08:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T11:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/?p=991"},"modified":"2017-01-21T08:26:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T08:26:15","slug":"section-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/2017\/01\/18\/section-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Section 40 – Can Anyone Be the Fascist Press?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Section<\/a>Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 consultation is over, and what a feast of misrepresentation, negative tropes and shouty non-sequiturs it has been for “The Press”. Anyone\u00a0arguing in its favour is just naive, apparently.<\/p>\n

As usual the sordid misdescription of regulation by those using their massive page-clout to dodge further scrutiny only serves to expose the need for it. Due to the level of rank misrepresentation, ANM recommends you read it for yourself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Because listening to the likes of\u00a0Judge Rinder in The Sun, the\u00a0\u201cenormous financial burdens<\/em>” Section 40 would put on publications “that want to remain independent<\/em>.\u201d misrepresents the mechanism whereby if the publisher had refused to arbitrate and pushed to a full-blown\u00a0trial, they may be liable for all court costs (theirs and the claimants’), even if they won.<\/p>\n

Or this,\u00a0by\u00a0FreeThePress:\u00a0\u201cWith nothing to lose complainants are more likely to launch legal cases against publications (both large and small) based on the smallest of disagreements. These are issues that can be easily resolved by letters to the editor and\/or editor corrections<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s a good time-waster isn’t it, \u201cthe system\u2019s not even broken, and if it was it\u2019s all sorted now<\/em>\u201d, go the deniers, like the tired frightener about parasitic lawyers being the winners – conversely always true, and so not news either.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The “it’s unnecessary” rubbish wasn\u2019t true about there being\u00a0no legal fears<\/a>\u00a0in off-label prescribing during the passage of the Access to Medical Treatments Act, and it isn\u2019t true now. But that doesn’t stop The Press thwacking it,\u00a0like Richard Littlejohn in The Mail:<\/p>\n

\u201cnewspapers and their contributors are already subject to the criminal law, as the phone-hacking trials demonstrated, and the laws of libel.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, says Tim Fenton<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cunless you can interest the cops in helping you out – not possible in defamation cases – you have to be prepared to bet the house, and probably more, in order to get redress. Or … come and sue us if you think you\u2019re hard enough<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well yes, but is that argument even\u00a0just about\u00a0“The Press” versus the people anymore, or is that just another red-herring?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PRESS BARONS – THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPress regulation is an important issue. But the greatest threat to the credibility of the media no longer emanates from newspapers. Instead it comes via the internet, where \u201cfake news\u201d spreads without regulation through social media platforms and numerous other channels. That should be a greater concern for us\u00a0now<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0MP Damian Collins<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regulation of the press necessitates defining terms of reference very\u00a0exactly in an environment where “democratisation” of media makes that increasingly difficult. The cauldron is further heated\u00a0by the demise of what Horatio Mortimer<\/a>\u00a0refers to as “attention tax” \u00a0i.e. advertising, newspapers’ fading privilege. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might think your blog is too small to figure in the argument but according to Section 40, if you have a site from which you gain income, which is run as a business, where more than one person publishes news related articles, and which is subject to editorial control, you could find yourself qualifying as a relevant publisher.<\/p>\n

How long before that Section 40 definition is stretched to encompass anyone who publishes on the web?\u00a0As Quackometer blogger Andy Lewis put it in 2009, \u201cWe now live in an age where we are all publishers, not just the press<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

So if someone cries \u201cfoul lies\u201d, couldn\u2019t any one of us then be exposed to the next question of whether it was reasonable not to have been signed up to an approved regulator under Section 40?<\/p>\n

Then, in order to avoid paying all the claimant\u2019s costs under if you didn\u2019t settle or arbitrate but steadfastly pushed to court, you would have to prove \u201cthat the issues raised by the claim could not have been resolved by using an arbitration scheme of the approved regulator\u201d<\/em> and hope that a Judge would consider it \u201cjust and equitable\u201d<\/em> in all the circumstances of the case “to make a different award of costs or make no award of costs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Good luck. But wouldn’t it just be easier to stick to facts and if you get them wrong, apologise and correct them?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FAKE NEWS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fake-news may seem to emanate from the giants, but they’ve always told lies and invaded privacy. So let’s dump the them and us<\/em>\u00a0for a minute\u00a0and\u00a0burrow down into the you and me<\/em>\u00a0plebisphere to see what a lack of regulation actually means here.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a><\/p>\n

What bloggers lack in raw corporate power, they make up for in networks, and the\u00a0latest incarnation of fake-news is\u00a0a development of the same democratisation of the internet that is blurring publication boundaries, allowing lies and smears to spread underground before welling up all over the place.<\/p>\n

But the\u00a0public face of a supposedly democratised internet also requires\u00a0at least an appearance\u00a0of ethics, and so we see\u00a0the phenomenon\u00a0of some networked bloggers\u00a0poncing about as free speech heroes on an increasingly public stage, whilst being ever more traditionally tabloid below the radar.<\/p>\n

Peer-to-peer fake-news is passed on from blogger to blogger, post to post, tweet to tweet, DM to DM, but also by email, phone, face to face, and blogger to paper, just like the big guys, and just as dirty. As humanist Melanie Byng once said, “Just remember – there are lots of people who know about this now and they will tell each other. But let me know the minute you see anything because I can probably do something about it”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, through the same networks, respectability is maintained on the surface, and during libel reform secular rationalists certainly got on their free-speech soap-box . Here\u2019s part of skeptic Andy Lewis\u2019 “Written Evidence of the Joint Committee on the Draft Defamation Bill”:<\/p>\n

\n
\"Andy<\/a>

ProteStArt: Andy Lewis reports difficulty of convincing Sid Rodriguez of Skeptics in the Pub that ordinary politeness is “mental illness”<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIn reforming libel law, I will be looking for changes that allow me to feel confident that an honest, public discussion of controversial areas where there are potential vested interests involved need not expose me to arbitrary legal threats that could financially ruin me. The health of democracy requires ordinary citizens to be able to participate in public debate without fear of capricious and crippling harms.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because we wouldn’t want any of them, would we?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FULL DISCLOSURE – SKIN IN THE GAME<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\u00a1STOP!<\/a>

\u00a1STOP! Defamation – Fake-News & Identity theft.<\/p><\/div>\n

When ANM had to \u201cbet the house, and probably more<\/em>\u201d in order to expose networked and coordinated hate-campaign of covert targeting, it wasn’t just<\/em> \u00a0because of a refusal to mediate or resolve any issue whatsoever. It was because a blanket denial of\u00a0right of reply was the\u00a0specific modus operandi of the harassment campaign<\/a>, achieved by classic tabloid privacy invasion, stalking in other words.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t by any ordinary\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/em>press outlet either, but by a coordinated campaign of skeptic and humanist bloggers, celebrity scientists, doctors and lawyers attached to charities such as The British Humanist Association, Sense About Science, and the Good Thinking Society, several “big-hitter” journalists who are still hiding, and Andy Lewis himself.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it, if you’re literally forced into court, does it really cost any less to defend yourself from a refusnik skeptic bully with a massive gang than a Press Baron?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE THICK END OF THE WEDGE – STATE INTERFERENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Mortimer <\/a>\u00a0states:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a huge difference between state regulation, and state recognition that a regulator is independent<\/em>\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regulators must further meet the test applied by the Press Recognition Panel, who made the provision<\/a> that regulators:<\/p>\n

\u201cmust have no power to prevent the publication of any material, by anyone, at any time<\/em>\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can that be said of Judges?<\/p>\n

\"HHJ<\/a>When we were forced to court, HHJ Seys Llewellyn was quite comfortable with awarding costs to those tampering with publications to put words in claimants\u2019 mouths. If that\u2019s not interfering with publication I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0also didn\u2019t think offering a right of reply was necessary in a democracy<\/a>. He did think, against all standards of democratic expression, that publishing an open letter<\/a> about a global cult bigger than Scientology, was \u2018striking<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Justice also stated, against scientific evidence<\/a>, that ostracisation couldn\u2019t be aggressive, and ruled\u00a0that it was just and equitable to change chronology<\/a> to allow\u00a0thieves to prosper.<\/p>\n

Those bellyaching about state interference are trying to obfuscate\u00a0the fact that when you litigate, it\u2019s always<\/em> agents of the state that are in charge.<\/p>\n

Oh I know the judiciary is supposed to be independent, but come off it – especially when you\u2019re exposing something VBI (very bad indeed).<\/p>\n

Ignoring the Defendants contemptuous refusal to mediate the situation for years before legal action, the only independence Judge Seys Llewellyn demonstrated was independence from facts and chronology, established principle, and ultimately justice itself.\u00a0Could the demands of Section 40 really be any worse?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SECTION 40 \u00a0– THE REAL ISSUE – TARGETIZATION<\/strong><\/p>\n

So is it true that the only people who would gain from Section 40 (apart from lawyers, obviously) are the rich and powerful who will have nothing to lose by bringing cases \u201cbased on the smallest of disagreements\u201d<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Or is it truer to say that those close to power currently have no incentive not to be unreasonable whichever party in a dispute they are?<\/p>\n

Riding on the coat-tails of Simon Singh\u2019s \u201cbogus\u201d free-speech heroism<\/a>, Andy Lewis\u2019 words on libel reform, next to his actions, demonstrate exactly<\/em> how tabloid blogging works:<\/p>\n

\u201cthere is a duty to contact the authors of the material in preference to any other party that may be involved in the chain of publication, that the nature of the complaint is made clear and that simple and fast remedies are offered that do not involve attempts to silence beyond the scope of the complaint<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds good, no? But when we “dutifully” tried to contact him about the lies he spread about us and our children, we had\u00a0to ask Simon Singh for help in\u00a0overcoming Lewis’ comprehensive and\u00a0provocative blocking of democratic exchange. I got temporarily banned from Twitter for even\u00a0contacting Singh, which just shows how many people were involved even in November 2012.<\/p>\n

Lewis then contemptuously\u00a0published our request for resolution, calling on “I’m told<\/em>” hearsay as authority, to distort events\u00a0<\/strong>directly\u00a0<\/strong>concerning our\u00a0children, with no right of reply. As we were both blocked, and stalked, as well as being out of jurisdiction, he knew we could do nothing about this.<\/p>\n

Shortly after that, we achieved a\u00a0landmark human rights settlement<\/a>\u00a0about unchecked bullying in a Steiner school, which Andy Lewis didn’t want us to have, having been\u00a0part of the group who had tried to sabotage it<\/a> while it was in progress.\u00a0In spite of the settlement having been in the press<\/a>, and as he thought we still lived safely outside the UK, Andy Lewis deliberately re-published the same lies again about our family, this time on his main Quackometer site.<\/p>\n

An \u201chonest, public discussion of controversial areas<\/em>\u201d? Or\u00a0contemptuous and deliberate escalation?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Eventually, having had to relocate our whole family to the UK because of the effects of this harassment, and with only months before the statute of limitations, he still<\/em> would not engage in any opportunity to mediate the situation whatsoever.<\/p>\n

So as a last resort we took our CPR compliant pre-action letter, the one he wouldn\u2019t acknowledge receiving, and we went to an advertised open public meeting about Steiner Education, the cult he was pretending to expose, at Bath Skeptics in the Pub.<\/p>\n

After sitting through his talk, and during the break, we tried yet again to give him the pre-action letter which included statements like “Andy we have faith in you that you can sort this out<\/em>“. He refused to accept or even \u201ctouch\u201d it. Months later, he was still lying about it in dismissive and contemptuous terms to make sure we were banned from any more “open” meetings, telling Jo Torres in Plymouth that we “showed up in Bath to \u2018serve papers on me\u2019. Idiots.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Instead of his claimed “simple and fast remedy<\/em>“, Andy Lewis lied to the Bath “open meeting” that he wanted “nothing to do with”<\/em> us. In fact he was covertly soliciting information from others for a\u00a0dossier he was compiling\u00a0for “authorities”, and\u00a0stalking us online.<\/p>\n

The only reason he would give the surprised skeptics for not engaging\u00a0was that we had been giving him \u201ca little bit of a hard time<\/em>\u201d (i.e. publishing to expose the hate-campaign and offering him a right of reply), then he left.<\/p>\n

But before he went, he stopped, pointedly waved his umbrella at us, and insinuated clearly to everyone present that we were a criminal danger to\u00a0children.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe me? Just watch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/short.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Footage revealed through litigation<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SECTION 40 – BECAUSE ANYONE CAN BE THE FASCIST PRESS<\/strong><\/p>\n

The more powerful will always pile on and run vexatious legal actions, and in a global age of attention deficit, that\u2019s clearly just as true of your skeptics as your Paul Dacres, so deciding costs based on wilful obstruction to resolving issues seems very fair to me.<\/p>\n

This is identified as the “germ of truth”<\/em> in the Sun by The Conversation<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone wants to exercise the right to affordable justice through arbitration and a newspaper refuses to cooperate, so forcing them to take the far more expensive route of court proceedings, then the judge will have the option of making the newspaper pay both sides\u2019 costs even if the paper wins<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that’s right isn’t it? Whichever party is vexatiously (and usually criminally) avoiding issues to push towards civil legal action, because they can afford to, should be the one to pay, because they\u2019re the ones that\u00a0are bothered by democracy.\"Tampering<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s about as far as regulation should go. If Section 40 was in force for Andy Lewis, his galloping vexatiousness would have been unmasked. He\u00a0wouldn’t be able to hide the impossibility of him risking public debate behind copious mental health smearing,\u00a0without being forced to pay for it.<\/p>\n

And we wouldn’t have been exposed to the uncomprehending judgement of a now retired elderly judge who so clearly did not grasp the facts, the free-speech and privacy issues involved, or that the Defendants and their lawyers were lying through their teeth.<\/p>\n

This contemptuous trolling of the judiciary by Robert Dougans of Bryan Cave\u00a0began when he was\u00a0rolled in prior to any legal action. Dougans\u00a0said he would need more information before being able to consider mediation, which we of course sent. But it was never replied to. Forced therefore to serve the claim, we immediately asked about mediation again at which point Robert Dougans said \u201cI think we are well beyond that now<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, what we eventually discovered by having to sue was how the massive hate campaign was fuelled, by the willing use of Plymouth University Professor Dr Richard Byng’s authority to spread a totally made up “clinical judgement” of borderline personality disorder against me, in order to convince others that I am dangerous and must be ostracised. Is it any wonder it now\u00a0turns out we’re not his only targets<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Due to Lewis’ lawyers willingness to lie, in and out of court, he was telling people in the background\u00a0that \u201cshe\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(me) \u201cis making it very easy for me<\/em>\u201d by publishing. This was because, due to our family having exited\u00a0what he himself refers to as an “insidious cult<\/em>“, a massive authoritarian and controlling global organisation which he claims nobody will take on, our publications include cult references that they could materially alter\u00a0to create false evidence.\u00a0This was done to create a judicial knee-jerk response,\u00a0<\/strong>to\u00a0lead the judge\u00a0to ignore the proven fact our words had been deliberately taken out of context and an extreme meaning applied to them<\/a>\u00a0by barrister Jonathan Price of Doughty Street Chambers.<\/p>\n

Using this criminal tactic they’ve so far got away with stealing the home of a family exposing a cult, by leveraging child sexual abuse to obfuscate the very cult abuse they claim to be exposing themselves.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the ugly truth of tabloid blogging folks, and why you and me<\/em>\u00a0fake-news, what Leveson described as “internet pub gossip<\/a>“<\/em>, is just as dangerous to any targets of it as the excesses of The Press.<\/p>\n

It’s also why ANM considers Section 40\u00a0could actually make a difference<\/a>, certainly unmask serial harassers, and potentially overcome or circumvent any lack of genuine independence among the judiciary, who are demonstrably so easily\u00a0trolled by seasoned professional liars.<\/p>\n

Because the motivation in\u00a0Section 40 might also have the happy outcome of leading more\u00a0publishers of all types to mediate situations properly before they ever get out of hand thus avoiding the need for either arbitration or<\/em> litigation at all.<\/p>\n

By unmasking vexatious anti-democratic publishers on all levels, Section 40 would\u00a0<\/span>give some power back to targets of elite, cult, or just plain vicious interests, a<\/span>nd that is exactly why I\u2019m predicting that it won\u2019t be implemented.<\/p>\n

I sure hope to be\u00a0proved wrong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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