Fire Alarm Companies

Any attack on the press affect all Internet users, dealing with the world around them

The News of the World scandal was brewing for a long time. We 've had, quite literally, Year mounting outrage, as the facts about Rupert Murdoch 's tabloid empire and its ruthlessness, corruption seeped out and howling moral void, though some more whistleblowers leaked to the story, or an unbent last copper around the investigation of the allegations. Count me firmly in the camp, on the one hand, like nothing better than to far-reaching examination of the full extent of this kind of lawlessness and vigorous prosecution of those involved would.

Similarly, count me put in with the cynical observer that the folding quickly from being persecuted by a Sunday edition of the Sun or a similar move will be - that the NewsCorp empire is no more than a bloody nose from the scandal, when suffering the legislature and the police do something about it.

But it seems that whenever I turn on the radio or read the newspaper, I 'm with politicians who confronted begin by criticizing NoW and NewsCorp, could come to other tabloids and press outlets, whose evil deeds to the next few weeks will move to light, and then conclude with a general condemnation of the "Press the" that should be "too powerful."

And at this point you can count on me right from .

For me, the term "the press is \ too powerful" is as cool as "This election is too time consuming" or "the secret ballot is just a farce" or "due process is too expensive, we know Who 's guilty and who isn' t "It is a contradiction in terms: for while it 's possible that a particular company or cartel too powerful, the idea that the Institution of the press is too powerful is Orwellian. If a media company grows too powerful, that generally means the press is not strong enough : An all-eclipsing binary media empire wipes out the alliance press freedom by the monopolization of distribution channels, distort and discourse with the party or in exchange for favors and (of course) more power. A powerful machine is built on a strong, pluralistic debate, to develop one, new voices and new perspectives can be heard. The more diverse the press, the stronger it becomes.

"The press is \ too powerful," was nothing less than a prelude to a proposal to regulate the press to be read, especially the increase in the liability for investigative journalists. We 've already seen how this plays: tough libel laws to curb the popular press has become a mere cost of business information for the vast empires of media attention. These empires grew even larger, as the niches they used to be smaller, more diverse, less affluent media, which shrank to them the first time someone insulted with the power to use a libel suit in order to silence them busy busy.

Increased expression of adhesion always favors the rich and powerful.

They're the ones who can hire sophisticated experts to help them come right up to the law's edge without slipping over it. They're the ones who can take risks and paper over their failures with cash settlements.

You 're the ones who own their infrastructure and don \ My' t have to make a risk-averse cheap web host or high-street printers in order to convince her material.

Britain 's defamation lawsuits to punish only incidentally affect the online world, but all press control, manual labor was now the web would directly put in their crosshairs. Following the pattern of litigation in recent years, it would aim to take anonymous comments to try to attract publishers and online service providers accountable for their users to leave comments. Say, Google (YouTube, Blogger), Facebook or Twitter - - It would try looking for the deepest pockets in the system and they made the situation preemptively filtering out potentially risky speech.

It will undoubtedly serve as a pretext for the expansion of Britain 's Great Firewall, currently Ed Vaizey for use by the entertainment barons to pages whose intellectual attitude annoys them blacklisted.

These laws and systems are more likely to shut down Uncut UK 's reports from the road, WikiLeaks' s cable-dumps, and children who complain about their school leadership, as they have a scratch on Rupert Murdoch and his family are provided. After all, the former no lobbyists in Whitehall to ensure that the "modest, sensible press Regulation" doesn 't shut down their free speech, while Murdoch' s profitable speech an army of gladhanders fund is to ensure that each law that arises is as low as possible to them. What it does 't sure, however, be easier for the rich and powerful to make their way as the lone blogger community watchdog at the Council meeting, the child twitters in a police vessel from her cell phone to buy into the legislation itself .

I observe 'd love Murdoch's turn in the wind as much as anyone, and I hope they do. But what ever like to get their comeuppance, it shouldn 't an excuse for an attack on the power of the press itself.

There is no law on the press or journalists who 't going to end up entangled in the affairs of daily Internet users, who won the world around them.

We don 't need to press regulation. We need vigorous enforcement of existing laws against hacking cell phone. We need thorough investigations into the machinations that caused Scotland Yard to explain the problem to a non-issue and a closed case. We need rules, violation of privacy, not only on the "journalists" (whatever that means nowadays), but on target all who is collecting information on you, from the neighbour who installs a CCTV that captures your every coming and going, to the government itself — and the Murdochs and their private investigators, too.