Tuesday 24 May 2011

Privacy/Freedom of the press

I'm not sure where to start here. Obviously, there's something broken with the UK privacy laws.

I've started wondering whether there's a suitable system that meets the right to privacy *and* the right to free speech also. What I ended up thinking about recently was a "secrets registry". This may be a little tricky to explain, and it may still not fit the bill for those seeking privacy.

The idea would be that, if a particular "secret" was due to be published, that the person(s) involved would be able to postpone that publication - for a *short* period of time (currently thinking about 7 days). They would also be able to register:

a) A written statement (length to be confirmed - there would have to be limits based on the proposal below)
b) the same statement in other forms (audio/video/etc)

We'd also need the law to be changed. My proposal would be that, if any media outlet wished to report the story (after the blackout period is over), they would have to carry the statement(s) from each involved party, at least as prominently as any story they run. There's various obvious gotchas here. I'd think that if an outlet wanted to publish stories on multiple days, they shouldn't be required to print the statement every day. OTOH, they ought to have to publish the official statement every so often (say, every week).

Then, we get to the concept of prominence. I think this is (reasonably) easy to solve. If you wish to publish an article on page 1, then the statement must have been recently published on page 1. If the article appears at the top of the page, then the statement must have been recently published at the top of the same (or an earlier) page. Basically, we need to craft these rules to avoid obvious dodges (such as publishing one story at the bottom of page 19, with the statement, to allow them to run a follow up story the day after on page 1, without the statement)

We also need to consider how the non-written media deal with these stories. This is why I proposed that additional materials could be provided alongside the written statement. I'd propose that, if material has been provided that fits the medium (or can be so converted) that it be used. Only if no such material was available, would it be appropriate for actors to re-render the written statement, with some requirement that the actors have a neutral voice for reading the written statement.

Obviously, this is all a pipe-dream - people aren't going to change overnight. But any improvements available?

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