The same government that brought you the Snoopers' Charter now wants to control the press - all of it

If you don't support the IP Act, why support what amounts to press censorship from the same people?

Today, the "consultation" closes on Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, the government's plans to extend its control to every element of the UK media at the behest of the son of the founder of the British Union of Fascists.

What does that have to do with a publication that typically writes about enterprise IT?

Well, quite a lot, actually. And, if it concerns publishers like Incisive Media (responsible for your favourite enteprise IT titles as Computing, V3 and Inquirer) and Situation Publishing, which produces The Register, then it should concern you as well.

We don't normally bother ourselves with politics unless it directly concerns the IT industry, but The Register's appeal this morning is well worth reading.

It describes the government's proposals - the same government that is behind the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 - as "a dangerous piece of law that will prevent El Reg, as well as the rest of the British news media, from being able to publish stories about bullshit merchants, con artists and criminals".

It continues: "Section 40 forces all news media publications to pay for the lawyers of both sides in any court case, even if the journalists win the case."

What do you think would happen if such a law were to apply more broadly - anyone choosing to sue anyone else could expect their costs to be paid by whoever they chose to sue? The results don't bear thinking about.

For a publisher like Incisive Media, it would mean that every story would have to be risk-assessed before publication. Remember, we would have to pay the costs of anyone who complained about anything we wrote - and the law could very easily be extended to cover anything you wrote, too: on your blog, Facebook, or on Twitter.

Indeed, there is no restriction on what types of news organisations Section 40 will apply to - although the BBC has bizarrely been given a blanket exemption.

Writing about corruption, or even just forthright opinion pieces, could become a dangerously expensive business, and let's not forget that London is already the libel capital of the world, where the super-rich come to bankrupt their critics. We also frequently receive take-down requests from individuals citing the EU right to be forgotten regulations.

Still sitting comfortably as you bash out a tweet about Meryl Streep, US president-elect Donald Trump or Marine LePen?

Of course, in a bizarre twist to privatisation, we could all avoid this whole unpleasant business if we signed up to Impress, the "independent" press regulator set-up by Max Mosley, the miffed millionaire who took exception to The Sun reporting on something he was involved in.

To return to The Register's article, "Impress is funded, through a convoluted structure, by Formula One boss Max Mosley. Mosley's battles with the press have been reported extensively over the years. He is not a man in a position to claim to be impartial or neutral on the topic of media regulation, given his words and actions, though doubtless others in his position may feel equally aggrieved".

Mosley isn't the only backer at Impress who is less than impartial, and who positively wants publications the organisation doesn't like to close.

As the old saying (attributed to Voltaire) more-or-less goes: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."

Free speech and economics

And let's add another angle: the economy, investment, wealth creation and the company you work for.

It's a very UK (and European) thing to look across the Atlantic at the many wealth-creating companies like Google, Facebook and Apple, the great jobs they provide, and opine over what needs to be done to emulate such success over here.

The European Union has its Digital Single Market initiative, led by its commissars that will somehow munificently help the EU to foster just the kind of prosperity that California enjoys with its dot-coms and internet companies.

Notwithstanding, of course, the so-called "Cookie Law", the General Data Protection Regulation, the proposed Directive on Network and Information Security, the ‘right to be forgotten' and countless other laws, regulations, directives, regulators and so on.

Yet what has arguably made America so prosperous, and which does much of the hidden heavy-lifting holding up the ‘free internet' across the world, is the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

This guarantees the right of free expression. Originally intended as a tool to protect religious liberty, as well as the country, from tyranny, it "guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely".

Without this, there would arguably be no Google, no Facebook, no Twitter and the internet itself would be a lot less free.

The lack of an unambiguous right to free speech in the UK and the European Union - not to mention the manic imperative to regulate so much to the nth degree - is arguably a reason why, by some measures, the internet economy in Europe is little bigger than Africa's.

In the US, the First Amendment protects Google, Facebook and other companies, and their users, with no ifs, buts or maybes.

But if they and their users can be considered or classified as publishers, what will happen to their operations in the UK, and the highly paid jobs attached to them?

The government's plans for Section 40 don't just threaten publishers. They threaten you, dot-coms, technology companies and the country's prosperity.

The response of many press campaigners, looking to close in for the kill on publications they don't like, can be summed up in the shrill cries of "Murdoch", "The Daily Mail" or "The Sun". Look at the side-bar of shame! The irrelevant stories. And, of course, phone hacking!

Well, phone hacking - or to put it more mundanely, dialling someone's number, going through to their voice mail and pressing the universal default password "1234" to access their voice mails - was already illegal and has been punished by existing laws.

Or, at least, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp was punished, while "approved" media organisations appear to have been let off.

Indeed, Rupert Murdoch's publishing empire really isn't as all-powerful as many would like to believe. The internet, combined with tools like WordPress, Facebook and Twitter, provide a near-infinite amount of ‘paper' on which anyone can write and publish whatever they like.

The press and mass media is not the conduit to the people that it once was. Nor is it a licence to print money - as Murdoch's News Corp's latest results demonstrate.

Everyone can be a publisher now.

So, how long before Section 40 and de facto press control (and, hence, censorship) is extended to cover any media? Yes, that includes your blog (even your corporate one), every YouTube upload and every tweet or retweet you casually make.

If you don't support the IP Bill, why support what amounts to press censorship and a further clampdown on freedom of speech from the same people?

Register your opposition to Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 here.