Declan Ganley and Twitter

ShooterSF

As some may be aware here there has been a settlement between a user of twitter and Declan Ganley in a defamation case due to a tweet by the user. I was just wondering if anyone has any idea why twitter wasn't reprimanded for publishing the defamation as Minister Sherlock's S.I. was meant to allow for?

Boards.ie for example is always on the watch out for defamation cases on the site and only recently silenced a discussion on a video about some drunken kid partially out of fear of a defamation case.

Is this simply preferential treatment for bigger companies like twitter? Or did I misunderstand Sherlock's S.I.

NoQuarter

ShooterSF wrote: »

As some may be aware here there has been a settlement between a user of twitter and Declan Ganley in a defamation case due to a tweet by the user. I was just wondering if anyone has any idea why twitter wasn't reprimanded for publishing the defamation as Minister Sherlock's S.I. was meant to allow for?

Boards.ie for example is always on the watch out for defamation cases on the site and only recently silenced a discussion on a video about some drunken kid partially out of fear of a defamation case.

Is this simply preferential treatment for bigger companies like twitter? Or did I misunderstand Sherlock's S.I.

I actually think they were right not to reprimand twitter. I mean if they did, imagine how many times twitter could be held accountable worldwide. It would be impossible to moderate the site and it would be inoperable. Then all social media sites would fall.

I havent read the S.I though.

Besides that, there is s.27 of the Defamation Act, 2009 which states;

(2) A person shall not, for the purposes of this section, be considered to be the author, editor or publisher of a statement if—

(c) in relation to any electronic medium on which the statement is recorded or stored, he or she was responsible for the processing, copying, distribution or selling only of the electronic medium or was responsible for the operation or provision only of any equipment, system or service by means of which the statement would be capable of being retrieved, copied, distributed or made available.

Also, for what its worth, I think Boards understanding of Defamation laws is all over the place judging on 2 posts I've read recently, one being on the thread you mention and one elsewhere on the site which describes Defamation - innaccurately. Methinks they need to brush up on their law int he office!

Tom Young

Two separate issues OP.

Tom Young

Hosting per S.I. 68 of 2003 implementing 2000/31/EC is what Internet Hosts would rely on.
That is the eCommerce Directive.

Minister Sherlock implemented injunctive relief via Section 40(4) and (5) of the CRRA 2000, which had a genesis in Article 8 of the Copyright Directive.

The Minister may not have had the power to implement such an SI, even though to all intents and purposes it is in being. Article 15 of the Constitution does not allow legislation extraneous to the processes of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Sherlock's S.I. doesn't seem to have a power sitting in the Act of 2000 for interim amendments such as the one you refer to. That deals with Copyright infringements, not defamation.

Paddy De Plasterer

Ganley claims he was defamed and the poster had to pay money to an organisation of Ganleys choice. David Cockrane of Politics.ie used work for Ganley. John McGurk was another one of his cronies.

Tom Young

So what ... have you read the charter?