Category: Communications and Media & Law and Policy

21st September 2022

I have been asked to give a lecture by the University of Birmingham, where I went to law school (and where I am now an honorary lecturer).

The lecture will be on law, blogging, and social media.

(You din’t think they would let me near substantive law?)

I hope that the lecture can be released as a podcast and as a pdf.

I am putting some thoughts together – but my knowledge is limited.

I know about my own blogging and use of social media, and about that of some of my peers.

But my perspective is that of a provider of stuff, rather than as a consumer of stuff.

And so I was wondering what the readers of this blog thought about legal blogging and legal commentary on social media.

In particular, I should be grateful for responses to the following queries about the legal blogging and legal commentary on social media of others (and please not mine – please don’t use my stuff as examples):

Does legal blogging and legal commentary on social media provide any information or insight to you that you would not otherwise have access to?

Are there particular examples of posts or threads or videos or podcast episodes which you regard as especially helpful?

Does legal blogging and legal commentary on social media really help the public understanding of law?

And if so, how?

Do you use (and do you prefer) other sources of legal information – such as journals, the trade press, and the mainstream media?

And given law had managed quite well for thousands of years before the World Wide Web and social media/blogging/podcast platforms, is legal blogging and legal commentary on social media just a waste of time?

What, if anything, does it do which is new and different from other forms of media?

Any other thoughts welcome, especially if you have links to examples.

Many thanks.

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18th August 2022

I am working on a couple of long posts, and one of these – about Freeports and so-called “Charter Cities” – involves consideration of “conspiracy theories”.

So I thought it may be useful, as a separate post, to consider this term.

I do not think it is a useful term in many discussions, because it is pejorative.

You may have considered, rational  opinions – but they believe in conspiracy theories.

Few people will admit readily that they believe – or could believe – in a conspiracy theory.

And so merely calling something a conspiracy theory is unlikely to change minds.

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This is not to say conspiracies do not exist.

Conspiracies do exist.

That people can act in concert for wrongful purposes is a common feature of everyday life.

Of course, there is also the cock-up theory.

And cock-ups – that is, things that happen by chance – also exist.

In my view, conspiracies often come into existence to cover-up the cock-ups – for it is only when there has been a mistake that there will be sufficient focus and motivation for people to act in concert.

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At this point in this discussion, someone will usually refer to “Hanlon’s Razor” – the rule that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

(They will often also link to an explanation of it, on the assumption you have not heard the term before.)

And Hanlon’s Razor may be a good general rule, but concerts and conspiracies do exist – and can be hidden under a guise of stupidity.

So Hanlon’s Razor is perhaps a sound presumption, but it should never be an absolute law.

A better approach when looking at something untoward is just to see where the evidence takes you, and what best explains that evidence.

Sometimes the evidence will point to a cock-up, sometimes to a conspiracy, and sometimes to a mix of both.

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People like to see patterns, people will tend to want their prejudices confirmed, and some people even find comfort in the idea that bad things happen for a reason.

Writing about issues of law and policy – especially controversial and topical issues – means that I realise some readers will just want their views endorsed and suspicions confirmed.

A few – a minority – will say instead they want their views challenged, and a smaller minority will actually want to be challenged.

But the readers I am writing for primarily are those who are aware of an issue and want understand it better so as to form their own views, and want also to have the tools to do so.

They are the people I blog for – and, indeed, blog with.

And so, oddly, even the act of regularly writing a blog in partnership with attentive readers is a form of concert.

Though, of course, if this blog is ever successful in explaining an issue well, then that will be sometimes by chance.

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This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome.

The comments policy is here.

28th July 2022

From time to time there are fundamental shifts in human communication.

One was the invention of writing – where no longer would things have to rely on memory and oral transmission.

Information could be stored and it could travel distances.

Another was the invention of the printing press.

This meant that – in principle – it was now open to any person to publish and circulate information far more widely than before.

And this was why “the freedom of the press” was such an important principle – long before the advent of Fleet Street and modern newspapers.

Each of these two shifts meant that the ripples expanded of what was capable of being communicated and circulated.

Without writing a person is limited on how much information they can absorb and impart – and you are practically limited to what you remember and who you see face-to-face.

And without printing a person is limited to how much information they can personally publish – by hand copying or otherwise – and how widely that information can be distributed.

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When I was young, it was still practically impossible to circulate information without going through a gatekeeper.

If you wanted to publish or broadcast something to the world, you normally had to go through an established publisher or broadcaster.

Yes, in theory, one could self-publish a “vanity” book, or print a pamphlet, or take a boat in to the English Channel as a “pirate” radio station.

But unless you did one of these eccentric things, you pretty much had to rely on established publishers or broadcasters if you wanted to publish or broadcast your thoughts to the world.

And then came along the internet and the World Wide Web – or at least general access to the internet and the WWW.

At a stroke any person with an internet connection could publish and broadcast to the world.

The old technological boundaries dissolved.

The gatekeepers were still there – and established publishers or broadcasters are not gone (yet) – but they were no longer essential.

On either side of the gates there are now holes in the fences.

This is, I think, a revolution quite as profound as the invention of writing or the development of the press.

And I do not think we are yet fully aware of the consequences of this shift.

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For example, in my own area – law – the old certainties of legal liability were based on there being a moment where a thing was “published”.

Once a thing was “published” then there was potential exposure for liability in defamation or copyright which a person would not have a moment before.

And so publishers took the moment of publication seriously – and things were not published lightly.

Where the law of defamation most visibly broke down in pre-internet days was when you had a leaflet or a small-circulation pamphlet outside of established publishing practices – as in the McLibel or Tolstoy cases – and then there was a mismatch between the scale of the legal process and the scale of the publication.

Now, the McLibel or Tolstoy situation is the norm, and not the exception.

And it was ten years ago yesterday that the appeal was won in the once-famous Twitterjoketrial case, where communications legislation that predated social media was misused to prosecute a non-serious tweet.

(I was the appeal solicitor in that case.)

Now, new legislation needs to be premised on the existence of social media, rather than being strained to make it apply.

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The old channels of information transmission and exchange – be they newspaper titles or political parties – are having less and less purchase.

The political consequences of these declines are becoming apparent, but they are not fully worked through.

Some of the effects are unwelcome – as this blog set out this week with reference to the “3 Ps” – populism, polarisation, and post-truth.

And the sheer, unrelenting nastiness of “culture wars” shows what people can publish to the world when they no inhibitions.

Human beings – as primates – can be said to be bound by Dunbar’s Number – the number of meaningful social relationships one can have at one time.

In pre-internet days, even the greatest celebrities could control their contacts with more than a small group of people.

And now, there is the possibility of constant interactions with limitless people – and not just for celebrities.

Can we, as a species, cope?

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This fundamental shift has to be be accommodated by our constitutional and legal structures.

Otherwise, there will be constitutional and legal dislocations.

And – in the context of the “3 Ps” – populism, polarisation, and post-truth – it is difficult to see how our current constitutional and legal structures, derived primarily from the past, can easily survive.

They were not built for this – and neither, as a species, are we.

Even without the knavery and foolishness of the likes of Trump and Johnson, there are serious issues to be addressed about how we govern ourselves in this internet age.

Or even whether we can still govern ourselves effectively at all.

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Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome.