Vincent Maher said “Media is a grown-ups’ game, not for kiddies”
Posted on May 25th, 2007 by Richard Catto 1,925 views
In response to Media is a grown-ups’ game, not for kiddies by Vincent Maher.
One thing is for certain, a few of them seem to think being small-time is tantamount to bravery. The Cape Town News blog explains how mainstream media are too scared to link De Lille’s call for the government regulation of blogs to a particular sex blog that the Mail & Guardian did a story on yesterday.
I’m saying that the Mainstream Media hasn’t got any balls, yes.
Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." Matthew 5:13
If the media no longer has the courage to publish and be damned, it has become worthless.
5. It will be up to the judge to decide if the story is a lie, not a bunch of scrofulous nerds
And until it is actually deemed a lie by a judge, it is what it is. It is neither lie nor truth.
4. When you spread a lie about someone its the same as telling the lie in the first place
Only if it is my intention to defame. I am linking to sa male prostitute’s blog to facilitate discussion of its merits and demerits.
In my opinion, it seems to have a ring of truth about it. It could be true.
6. If the lie turns out to be true then thats the right time to talk about it and make it public knowledge
Actually the media is already talking about it, but in the cagey, indirect, dishonest way I criticised.
I’m also not prepared to put my life on hold waiting for a judge to tell me if it’s okay to blog about and link to material that I feel is newsworthy.
7. If the lie is a lie, and you helped spread it, you are guilty.
Judge Vincent Maher has spake. Please note this down. I am guilty. Mea culpa.
BTW, Maher, you link your blog to my blog which links to sa male prostitute. Hence, you are also helping to spread the "defamation". Maybe we can be cell-mates?
Thinking you are above he law because you are using the Internet is the dumbest thing you could ever do.
I don’t think I’m above the law. What I think is that the media has lost its course. It no longer knows where True North lies.
Perhaps if enough bloggers point the way, you will remember? Trouble is, the media doesn’t want to believe the Blogosphere. It thinks to itself, "What do they know? They’re just kiddies."
It is easy to track you
So track down sa male prostitute already, if it is so easy.
If someone was doing that to you, you might understand this point a little better.
It has been done to me already. All manner of slander has been posted about me by various people on Usenet. I even had their IP addresses. Only fuckwits sue. You just ignore. That’s what you do.
Spreading slander to millions of readers a day is an irresponsible use of press freedom and the freedom of speech.
I’m not asking them to spread slander. I’m asking them to report honestly and truthfully.
I believe that I have done so in this blog.
Filed under air guitars of journalism, blogger, Blogosphere, blogs, Independent Democrats, Mail & Guardian, Patricia de Lille, sa male prostitute, Simon Grindrod, South African Blogosphere, The Media, Vincent Maher | 1 Comment »
Reinhardt Buys (legal opinion): safe to publish url that Patricia de Lille withheld
Posted on May 24th, 2007 by Richard Catto 5,693 views
An online legal expert, Reinhardt Buys, has echoed, in an article linked below, my original assessment of Patricia de Lille’s injunction against publishing the url of the blog she claims contains slanderous attacks against Simon Grindrod, Barry Ronge, and other South African notables.
De Lille threw up a legal smokescreen. She unanimously declared the offending blog to be slander and then used the threat of legal repercussions to intimidate people into thinking twice about publishing the url themselves.
De Lille erred when she attempted to bully the South African Blogosphere and the mainstream Media into keeping her "dirty little secret".
Buys also pointed out that slander is a civil matter, and therefore neither the police nor the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) will get involved investigating her claims.
So why did de Lille react this way?
The short answer is that she most likely does not have good advisers to tell her the best way to handle online slander effectively.
If she wanted to discover the person’s identity, she needed to hire a private investigation agency to handle this discreetly. At this point, though, the person has no doubt gone to ground and may never log into that blog again.
It seems that de Lille has learned from this self-inflicted debacle and has affirmed that she is firmly in the corner of Free Speech. She just doesn’t want to be slandered online by anonymous bloggers.
Fair enough. No-one does.
Source:
De Lille’s blogging bark without legal bite
Earlier today, de Lille backed off from her "regulate the bloggers" stance and stated that she has always been a champion of Free Speech
De Lille – ‘I am a living example of fighting for freedom of speech’
Linking to the SA Male Prostitute blog could land you in court
Filed under Barry Ronge, Blogosphere, blogs, Independent Democrats, Patricia de Lille, Politics, Simon Grindrod | 5 Comments »
An email to Patricia de Lille: I won’t live behind an Iron Curtain!
Posted on May 23rd, 2007 by Richard Catto 4,438 views
Hi Patricia
I’m resisting the chilling effect you are having on South African bloggers.
I’ve published the url to sa male prostitute’s wordpress blog. So has Technorati.com, and Google and other web indexing sites.
I won’t live behind an Iron Curtain where South Africans are banned from discussing certain taboo topics.
The irony is that there are nearly 1 million blogs on wordpress.com. I’m not sure how you discovered that particular one. Perhaps it was emailed to you or Simon Grindrod?
There are so many many people online talking a load of trash that most of it is not taken seriously and paid much attention to. The attention span of bloggers can be measured in nanoseconds. It takes a jolt to make them pay particular attention to any one particular unknown blog. You provided that jolt when you complained about it. If you had simply ignored it, it would have remained completely obscure.
Now this story is all over the South African Blogosphere, and you have managed to whip up a lot of negative sentiment towards yourself and The Independent Democrats, because you have made South African bloggers feel threatened by your statements.
Fact is, you’re what is known as a "newbie" – someone who is new to the Internet. You’re not sure how to cope with what people say online.
We’ve all been there. So we can understand and relate to an over-reaction to something you read online.
I suggest you embrace the South African Blogosphere, not alienate it.
Cheers,
Richard Catto
Filed under Blogosphere, blogs, Independent Democrats, Patricia de Lille, Politics, Simon Grindrod | 2 Comments »
Patricia de Lille, Simon Grindrod and the SA male prostitute
Posted on May 23rd, 2007 by Richard Catto 11,061 views
As you may already know, Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, is up in arms about some online alleged slander about Simon Grindrod, ID Caucus Leader.
Such is her wrath, that she has demanded that the South African government clamp down on "abusive" blogs.
On the ID’s web site they say that she cannot reveal the blog where this was written because they will then be spreading slander and be liable for various legal sanctions.
This is known as The Chilling Effect.
The South African Blogosphere is up in arms about de Lille’s attack on bloggers but no-one has dared to publish the url to this alleged slanderous web site. So, at the time of writing to date, no-one has analysed what was actually written and discussed it openly in their blogs.
This is not the South Africa that I subscribe to. I demand the freedom to blog freely and without fear.
I DEMAND IT!
Here are some relevant links to follow if you wish to understand this story more (UPDATED):
Independent Democrats web site: De Lille calls on government to regulate MXIT and Internet blogging
iol.co.za: De Lille urges crackdown on blogs
commentary.co.za: The Offending Grindrod Post
iol.co.za: I don’t stand for censorship, says De Lille
Stream of Gold: heterosexual male prostitute services men?
M&G: De Lille sets cat among pigeons in blogosphere
De Lille answers bloggers, clarifies position
Filed under Independent Democrats, Patricia de Lille, Politics, Simon Grindrod | 15 Comments »
