When Parliament passed the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, people warned them that it threatened journalism. The lack of a public interest defence or explicit protection for media activities meant that:
If a current affairs investigation into a dodgy finance company offends that financier or his family... if a Fair Go report distresses some con man... or if a cartoon emotionally harms a pious soul, they now can use the law to ask for the offending item to be taken offline.
And now its happened, with rich prick Ray Avery seeking to suppress Newsroom's reports on his "background, products and promises":
Avery has told Netsafe, the legal agent for considering complaints under the Act, the reports have caused him serious emotional distress and amount to a form of digital harm - and wants Newsroom to consider removing them and to agree not to write further news stories about him.
"Ray believes these are written with the purpose of harassing him and contain false allegations," Netsafe has told Newsroom.
MP's who voted for the law are shocked, shocked! by this. But they were explicitly warned about it in submissions, and they explicitly rejected. And now the public are paying the price, with an attempted threat to our free press.
People are generally comfortable with the use of the law to prevent and punish actual online bullying. But this is too far. Parliament needs to take urgent steps to protect press freedoms by enacting a public interest defence. Otherwise, we can conclude that like Tracey Martin, they want the law to be used in this fashion, perhaps in an effort to protect themselves.
