Matt Brown wrote:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States naturally carries certain legal implications. We all know that. That the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those implications. Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the same world as the rest of us.
However, I suspect that content producers and publishers would convincingly argue that in the matter of libel law, the United Kingdom is very much inferior, to the extent that British libel law is an effective restraint on all kinds of free speech that are legal in much of the rest of the world.
Of course, those who are frequently written about might disagree.
Just because I was given the incentive to be critical of United States attitudes doesn't mean that I would not take advantage of a similar opportunity to be critical of the United Kingdom. After all, whatever hypocrisy that we might now see emanating from the United States reflects a well learned lesson from its colonial past. When it comes to criticising government the United Kingdom still maintains a draconian Official Secrets Act to make it clear that speech is only as free as government wants it to be.
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