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Post by tewiremu on Jul 7, 2012 12:55:50 GMT 10
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Post by tewiremu on Jul 7, 2012 12:57:22 GMT 10
Apologies. I am not sure if any moderators are on duty today, due to staff cuts. I am not permitted to moderate comments either, due to lawfare against this blog and laws against free speech. Isn't that the most pathetic thing you've ever read?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jul 7, 2012 14:22:23 GMT 10
I'm curious to know what "lawfare" bolta has to put up with that wasn't equally directed at crikey. I still reckon the crackdown on the most appalling stupid only happened after the PP cut-and-paste threads started. There might have been complaints from readers, but I think it was the sheer embarrassment of seeing their readership's efforts highlighted that had greater impact. The amount of material for C/P declined over time, too - at least on the sites I was looking at. As for "My critics of the Left who will now rage at their inability to respond to my posts now have reason to ask themselves whether they should join my campaign for free speech" ... yeah, right. I'll just criticize from over here, where my posts will actually be published. No free speech problems at all if I just take andrew bolt's moderators out of the loop. Meanwhile, for a light-hearted chuckle ... see attachment, taken just now from the front page of the oz Attachments:
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Post by jack on Jul 7, 2012 15:41:20 GMT 10
Wow. What kind of operation is Andy and his team running when he's "not sure if any moderators are on duty today"? Is it inefficiency or incompetence or both?
Oh, and of course it has to be Teh Left "who will now rage" - "rage"", he says - at his employer's inability to run a simple frigging blog.
It's almost like he's doodling. Everything after "beyond my control" was added sometime after I first saw that post around 11.30 this morning.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jul 7, 2012 15:56:24 GMT 10
I tend to assume that they're not actually physically located in the office, and probably working from home (or wherever) over a web or (if they're sensible) a VPN connection.
The downsizing is interesting, though. I've tended to assume that the bolta blog was a shining jewel in the NEWS influence-crown, and fairly cheap rage-plugging.
The decision to insulate bolta himself from moderating decisions made sense (to me) from the point of view of protecting him personally from leftist nefarious accusations. I don't know how much of that comes down to legal ramifications or if it was just reputation stuff, or being able to bite back if anyone ever accused him of endorsing the comments.
I had to laugh when whoever it was having to apologize/retract the suggestion that mrs bolta had approved a particular comment that later caused angst and embarrassment .... because mr bolta could shoot back (essentially) "you can't prove it was her ... it MIGHT have been ME, and I'M NOT TELLING!". As in the case of a spat between crikey and another NEWS blogger - that little bit of ambiguity can make all the difference.
Any law talking people here ... I would be genuinely curious to know just what sort of lawfare might actually apply. I guess there's basic defamation, but bolty's always been pretty careful about that, and they've always smacked down those comments as long as I've been watching. Then there's complaints to the APC, but that's hardly solved by just getting minions to moderate (is it?). There is, of course, always the RDA, but again - is that really solved by outsourcing?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jul 7, 2012 18:25:00 GMT 10
Once again, the man's lack of self-awareness is breathtaking: Ian Robinson, president emeritus of the Rationalist Society, accuses Tony Abbott of exaggerating:.
By exaggerating a promise that might not have even been broken into a ‘’lie to the Australian people’’, by exaggerating a charge on carbon polluters into a ‘’huge tax on everyone’’ and by repeating these exaggerations ad infinitum and ad nauseam, Abbott and the opposition are lowering the level of political debate in contemporary Australia to that of Germany in the ‘30s.
No one is claiming Abbott is a Nazi but one has to ask why he, and the party he leads, are so doggedly using discredited Nazi propaganda techniques?
(link: www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/taxing-the-truth-why-we-must-not-let-abbotts-dogmas-lie-20120706-21mlz.html ) Disgusting hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. Indeed. I could supply links to show what I mean, but everyone here already knows. Just look for anything at the pull factor relating to crematoriums - if he's mentioning it, it'll be because somebody's raised some sort of environmental concern or suggested a way to ameliorate it, and it's always - ALWAYS - an "reminder" of some vaguely-defined by nonetheless unambiguous "totalitarian creed" from history. Nazis, in other words. I agree that comparing tony abbott with nazis is silly, though. Personally, I think a better comparison is with one of those bobbing birds that just keeps doing the same thing over and over no matter what ... www.amazon.com/American-Science-Surplus-Famous-Drinking/dp/B000JSGLBK... except made from a hammer.
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Post by tewiremu on Jul 9, 2012 19:46:40 GMT 10
More "burning martyr" smell. We have no moderators on weekends, and I am advised not to moderate any comments myself. The lawfare against this blog by its critics seems to be working. What a pack of self-justifying posturing! For one thing, there is no possible way anyone outside of Bolt himself and a staffer or two could tell who moderated his blog. For another, he coveniently neglects to tell us just which laws are being invoked to prevent him from moderating his own blog. Has anyone here ever heard of a court ruling that you can't moderate your own blog? How the hell can that be done? If there's anything behind this, it's more to do with either News Ltd slashing the staff he so lazily used to do his dirty work for him; or they've clamped down on his wife doing the modding for legal reasons. If she's not actually a News employee, and is moderating his blog, there's a rich boneyard of liability for the legals to pick over. I expect he's terrified of them giving him the boot: then his status as a self-employed person is out the window, and there go the tax writeoffs!
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Post by angra on Jul 9, 2012 20:11:50 GMT 10
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shv
New Member
Posts: 3
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Post by shv on Jul 9, 2012 20:15:03 GMT 10
Toward the end of PP I got moderated for calling Blot a "pin-dick".
This whole "lawfare" schtick simply avails me of the complete defence of 'truth' under the generous defamation laws Howard introduced for Rupert's benefit (the ALP loved them too, of course).
Seriously, the 'lawfare' rubbish and the 'no moderators available due to Rupert's tightness' are a load of bollocks designed to hide the fact that his star is in the plumetting-to-earth-in-a-smudge-of-fizzing-impotence phase.
It looks like that caravan is moving on and the clown is left with his barking dogs on the dark roadside... or something.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jul 9, 2012 20:52:04 GMT 10
Just to be blunt, and practical for a moment.
If somebody here posts something defamatory, I don't have the foggiest idea how that would pan out. It could be quite difficult to resolve, because nobody "represents" this blog. Unidentified herald-sun lawyers could (hypothetically) make threatening noises at (say) crikey, and crikey could respond ... because it has an editor, and directors and lawyers and stuff. I honestly don't know what would happen to a site like this. My real fear is that the only person with any administrative access might end up holding the baby (more on that shortly). I don't think ANY of us want to be staring down the barrel of a defamation suit - without a sugar-daddy paying the bills, the costs of that could probably break anybody here (dunno if any of you are landed gentry or anything like that). If you have a house, you probably want to keep it.
But let's all not assume that just because there's more than one of us that we're all safe from ticking off our favorite journalists. I think it would be very odd (and potentially a bad look) for a big name scribbler to go after some berk on the internet that nobody's heard of, but that doesn't mean they won't do it. They MIGHT come down heavy just to see if they net anyone interesting. Am I overly concerned about it? Probably. But better safe than sorry :-)
If somebody here does defame somebody, I honestly think that jules would be well advised to hand over whatever contact details she has ASAP, and wash her hands of the affair. Cooperate completely and don't take on any resposibility. That would be an excellent incentive for everybody to be careful about what they post.
I haven't checked, but maybe there's a space in the "board rules" for something that spells that out?
When I write things about (say) bolta, I try to keep in mind that I'm not actually "going after" him personally. I've never met the guy - it's possible that I might actually like him. And the few interactions I've had with him and his old moderators (except those most recent ones) indicated a basically decent chap with an actual sense of perspective. My exasperation is entirely with the stuff that he writes, and I like to think I can make that clear. I hope that keeps me out of trouble.
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shv
New Member
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Post by shv on Jul 9, 2012 21:14:40 GMT 10
MoC, agree with all of that (at least, the bits of a general nature).
As an aside, I see News Ltd was at it again today lying about the impact of carbon pricing on funerals.
They are, collectively, "pin dicks" in my book.
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Post by jules on Jul 9, 2012 21:57:53 GMT 10
I haven't wanted to think about that. (Especially the she bit, believe it or not. I'm a guy, my name is Julian. jules is a nickname from playing footy. FOOTY damnit!!111!)
Whats defamation? (Rhetorical question)
Calling someone a pin dick certainly isn't and I'd support SHV's right to do that any day.
On the other hand ... I might have to address this over the next week or so. I'll do some reading and see if I can come up with a clear set of guidelines and do some serious dthinking.
If someone complains about what has been written here, i'll archive it somewhere, remove the offending stuff temporarily and then make a decision about what comes next. So if and when i satisfy myself that whatever comment was reasonable then I'll put it back up, if I'm not satisfied I'll delete it permanently, or at least the offending words. That is the policy for now, I guess it'll change if it needs to.
- "Lawfare" is a danger to freedom of speech, as the Gunns 20 found out. (Not that Bolt ever mentions that case during his incessant crying about a decision last year.) In that case it was a danger to the way our society functioned. -
Whatever happens I'll be as up front as i can about it.
If this site needs moderation then I'll be asking for volunteers, but it'll be after the fact moderation. I'm not into what PP had to do. That just wrecks the flow of any conversations that get going in real time.
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shv
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Post by shv on Jul 9, 2012 23:40:58 GMT 10
The various state defamation laws are effectively now uniform across Australia. As an example, this is the Qld Defamation Act 2005: www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/qld/consol_act/da200599/The defences are here as allowed under the common law and specific defences are set out in Part 4 Division 2 (sections 25 to 33). The most important one for someone innocently running a blog to which all sorts of ratbags may post heinously defamatory comments at all hours of the night, is section 32: "DEFAMATION ACT 2005 - SECT 32 32 Defence of innocent dissemination (1) It is a defence to the publication of defamatory matter if the defendant proves that-- (a) the defendant published the matter merely in the capacity, or as an employee or agent, of a subordinate distributor; and (b) the defendant neither knew, nor ought reasonably to have known, that the matter was defamatory; and (c) the defendant's lack of knowledge was not due to any negligence on the part of the defendant. (2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person is a subordinate distributor of defamatory matter if the person-- (a) was not the first or primary distributor of the matter; and (b) was not the author or originator of the matter; and (c) did not have any capacity to exercise editorial control over the content of the matter (or over the publication of the matter) before it was first published. (3) Without limiting subsection (2)(a), a person is not the first or primary distributor of matter merely because the person was involved in the publication of the matter in the capacity of-- (a) a bookseller, newsagent or news-vendor; or (b) a librarian; or (c) a wholesaler or retailer of the matter; or (d) a provider of postal or similar services by means of which the matter is published; or (e) a broadcaster of a live program (whether on television, radio or otherwise) containing the matter in circumstances in which the broadcaster has no effective control over the person who makes the statements that comprise the matter; or (f) a provider of services consisting of-- (i) the processing, copying, distributing or selling of any electronic medium in or on which the matter is recorded; or (ii) the operation of, or the provision of, any equipment, system or service, by means of which the matter is retrieved, copied, distributed or made available in electronic form; or (g) an operator of, or a provider of access to, a communications system by means of which the matter is transmitted, or made available, by another person over whom the operator or provider has no effective control; or (h) a person who, on the instructions or at the direction of another person, prints or produces, reprints or reproduces or distributes the matter for or on behalf of that other person."
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jul 10, 2012 9:57:55 GMT 10
Sorry jules :-) I'm not exactly sure why I thought you were a girl.
Not that there's anything WRONG with that, of course...
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Post by twobob on Jul 10, 2012 13:30:33 GMT 10
Its my belief that we can all enjoy bolts rambling and sling shit on them without resorting to slinging shit on him. We don't have to defame him we can simply point to his own offerings and let them speak for themselves. In truth he will and has done a better job of demeaning himself through those than I could ever do by calling him names. Even some really inventive ones that I have come up with to describe the man to others.
And back onto the point of the thread, this intermittent moderation of his posts is going to dramatically lower the number of brain dead morons who lap up his excrement. As a lefty that does in no way raise my ire, or anger or whatever. I'm cheerin and I wonder if rupe has had a gutful of paying for law services for bolta and is weaning bolta over to his true love, gina?
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