Libel: science VS the law?

Well, this has been a week to burn and boil with sheer fucking rage. On Thursday, I attended a panel debate with TL and one of my best friends. It was titled 'Science Fact - science journalism and libel law' and it was taking place to inaugurate the new Science Journalism MA that has been launched at City University this year.

I have followed the case of Simon Singh and the BCA (British Chiropractic Association - they manipulate spines (and reality!)) for quite some time, and tried to tell whoever I can about it, to get people to do SOMETHING. Heresy Corner is one good source of information on the whole thing so far, but Googling 'Simon Singh BCA' should bring up links to many a blog, and Bad Science is also excellent.

Listening to Simon and Ben Goldacre discuss their respective cases, and explain the libel laws somewhat for young, clueless, sheltered types like me, was electrifying. I wanted to throw myself bodily before the House of Lords and shout about the lack of shame. All the panellists were excellent, although I noted with amusement that Duncan wasn't really able to cobble together a credible defense of our libel laws, beyond the fact that 'they're OUR libel laws' (erm, riiiight, Duncan).

Some of the things I learnt: damages rarely ever cover the full cost of having to defend yourself in the first place (which I knew, but had to be reminded of), cases are often dragged out so that they cost the defendant even more and effectively seek to crush their spirits and of course the rise of the use of 'super-injunctions' in conjunction with libel writs means that someone can sue you and NOBODY CAN KNOW. Any details about the trial can't be made public! Presumably the idea behind this is to stop the 'Streisand Effect', where a story explodes beyond previous expectations as a result of attempts to suppress it. It's one of the things I love about the Internet.

It cost BG and the Guardian 'in excess of' £500, 000 to fight his case against Matthias Rath (read all about it here! Tell everyone you know!). He won - but in the end, only about £363, 000 or so (or was it £336, 000? Damn tired brain!) was paid by Rath. Given that the Guardian had a lot of suits against it at the time (Elton John's one over Marina Hyde's column, Simon Singh's...) and is a loss-making paper anyway, it's a lot of money to put up. With the clarity and simplicity so characteristic of those who have to mediate between widespread public ignorance, and skilled academic expertise in science, Ben and Simon put the case against our libel laws very well.

Think about it - if someone sues you for what is increasingly turning out to be 'hurt feelings' rather than actual loss of reputation (consider the fucking Elton John case!), you have to PAY TO DEFEND YOURSELF. You have to pay for the right to establish that you are not a liar. In Ben's case particularly, this is like a hideous joke. He challenged a man who claimed that vitamin pills cure HIV and that anti-Aids medication doesn't! Surely, you think, there must be some 'public interest' defence available, right? FUCK, NO! I for one agree with them that there bloody well should be. I wish there was also some way to prosecute newspapers and media in general over 'endangering public health and safety' given cases such as the MMR hoax, the assertions that a teenager who died of an undiagnosed tumour died of the cervical cancer jab (yes, really!), the repeated claims that people who died of underlying health conditions actually died of swine flu and - lest we forget - the news that men are more likely to rape sober women, because women who drink 'ask for it.'

Duncan made a good point about how we need to beware of the growing pernicious influence of privacy and copyright law, but sadly that doesn't really detract from our libel tourism problems. Under English libel law, the burden of proof is on the person being sued. You are guilty till proven innocent. If we put this in the context of a company, or a magnate or an association suing an individual, how is that fair? The body of people will almost always have more money and access to the best legal counsel, than the individual will. In cases such as Ben's and Simon's, it undermines the very foundation of science to prevent criticism of your ideas by other people.

I don't believe that the law should be 'above all', especially when we have seen time and time again that it does NOT always work in the common interests of humanity, but in the interests of the richest motherfucker. It should certainly not be above science. Science might be influenced by humanity, and developed and enriched by humanity, but it exists independently of us and predates us. Cells will respire whether we realise it or not; evolution will slope slowly on and osmosis will regulate the water and ion content of our cells without our peering eyes' presence (whoo, A-level Biology! Yeah!).

The law, however, is man-made. It might be admirable and even sacred, but it is not inherent. It does not exist independently of human beings, unless we're thinking of 'natural law' (and we aren't. So there). The incredible thing about our attitudes to the law, is the mix of optimism and sheer fucking cluelessness. People really believe that laws are going to back them up, much of the time, that 'we are all equal before the law,' despite proof since time immemorial of a lil' mechanism called corruption. They assume that the law is something that will magically make itself understood to them, that they will be able to fight their own case or get a good lawyer cheap. Uh... nah? The law only works for us if we work to change it.

Our laws are certainly not terrible, but society changes very quickly and law doesn't necessarily always keep up with it. Just look at the battles that get fought about Internet content. There are people out there who want to be able to sue bloggers for remarks that may have been made totally independently of them, in comments threads. This is the 'taking offense' I mentioned earlier (and that somebody mentioned on Thursday) - and people should not be allowed to use libel laws - which seek to prevent lies from damaging a person's reputation - to silence all criticism of them. Especially not when the criticisms are actually TRUE, and when journalists are laid off right, left and centre and investigative journalism inevitably suffers. We NEED somebody to hold people like Rath to account.

Furthermore, free speech needs to be safeguarded. It's heavily ironic, because bigots often hijack the idea of free speech without, as TL remarked, actually understanding what it means. Free speech, even more ironically, is invoked by racists, misogynists and 'alternative' medicine-obsessed freaks, as exactly the opposite of what it is. They seem to think it is the right to make baseless assertions and morally and ethically unsound or abhorrent judgements, frequently without credible evidence - and have their tender feelings protected into the bargain. In short, they want to be lauded and patted for being thicker than is humanly tolerable. Whereas the whole notion of constructive free speech is that you say what you think, and if you're wrong, you get taken to task.

As I said, the astonishing hypocrisy of unpleasant people means that freedom of speech gets misunderstood a lot. I do love how bigots rail against religious ethnic minorities getting offended by anything, for example, but when their crap 'thoughts' get demolished, they go into offence overdrive. If you say what you think - rather than just saying what you feel - then hopefully you can live with what you say being rigorously challenged. And no, 'rigorously challenged' does not automatically involve rudeness and/or arrogance and sarcasm, as so many online seem to believe. Anyone who gets too offended to go on living as usual really shouldn't, in my opinion, be living in the first place. Unless, of course, we're dealing with a delightful individual like Matthias Rath, or the ever-charming Paul Dacre and his glorious goblin horde at the Daily (Hate) Mail.

Before I go to sleep (it's only Diwali tomorrow! I mean, today), I'll take up the cry that BG issued yesterday. SUPPORT DR. PETER WILMSHURST! It would also be awesome if you could: a) keep up to date with the Simon Singh campaign (he's been given leave to appeal, as his lawyer Jack of Kent reports, and may even have been defamed by the BCA!) and b) get people to sign up to Sense About Science. I have signed their petition; hell, I even donated a tenner to Simon's campaign before Justice Eady, that truckfucking privacy-law lover, turned the judgement on him.

I don't have a chequebook, or if I do, God knows where it is, so I will hunt it out this weekend/email Healthwatch UK, who are supporting Dr. Wilmshurst, and ask if I can send cash. I can't give much - poor student and all that - but I will try!

Just before I head off - read this for a warm, fuzzy feeling of love. Twitterers aren't twits after all, baby! Also, make sure you complain to the Press Complaints Commission about homophobic bee-yatch Jan Moir's Hate Mail article about the death of Stephen Gately. Charlie Brooker has all the details. Unity rides in on a pixellated white horse to suggest how we could reform our libel laws. P.S.: I just pulled this big metal spike - like about nearly two centimetres - out of my mattress when it nearly slashed my ankle. That's pretty scary, isn't it?!