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Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to co ntribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains  an extensive database of international case law . This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field. Community Highlights and Recent News ● Join members of the  High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom   and their guests at the launch of the Panel’s enforcement report entitled, Providing Safe Refuge to Journalists at Risk. The eminent panel of speakers, including   report author, English barrister, Member of the High Level Panel and Columbia Global Freedom of Expression expert, Professor Can Yeğinsu, together with Lord Neuberger, Ms Amal Clooney, Dr Courtney Radsch and Baroness Kennedy QC, will discuss a set of specific recommendations that States can implement t...

Twitter last weekend “tagged” as manipulated a video showing US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden supposedly forgetting which state he’s in while addressing a crowd. Biden’s “hello Minnesota” greeting contrasted with prominent signage reading “Tampa, Florida” and “Text FL to 30330”. The Associated Press’s fact check confirmed the signs were added digitally and the original footage was indeed from a Minnesota rally. But by the time the misleading video was removed it already had more than one million views, The Guardian reports. A FALSE video claiming Biden forgot what state he was in was viewed more than 1 million times on Twitter in the past 24 hours In the video, Biden says "Hello, Minnesota." The event did indeed happen in MN — signs on stage read MN But false video edited signs to read Florida pic.twitter.com/LdHQVaky8v — Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) November 1, 2020 If you use social media, the chances are you see (and forward) some of the more t...

Ridiculously low ceilings on administrative fines hindered the effectiveness of EU data protection law for over twenty years. US tech giants may have seen these fines as a cost of doing business. Now, over two years after the commencement of the European Union’s widely heralded General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the anticipated billion-euro sanctions of EU Data Protection Authorities, or ‘DPAs’, which were to have changed the paradigm, have yet to be issued. Newspaper tribunes and Twitter posts by activists, policymakers and consumers evidence a sense of unfulfilled expectations. DPA action has not supported the theoretical basis for GDPR sanctions—that of deterrence. However, the experience to date and reactions to it inspire recommendations for DPAs and companies alike. In our working paper,  EU General Data Protection Regulation Sanctions in Theory and in Practice , forthcoming in Volume 37 of the  Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal later in 2020, we explore...

There are many legitimate criticisms of the way in which family courts have dealt with domestic abuse. They are well documented in the Harm Report (see our posts  here  and  here ). Sometimes however, it seems that commentary and criticism about the family court slides away from being evidence based and towards the opportunistic and the sloppy (both in the mainstream media and more broadly). We have noticed that negative comments about family courts minimising domestic abuse often appear in social media alongside media reports that offer little or no evidence of actual cases. This is not helped by the closed nature of family proceedings but exaggeration may undermine genuine concerns. This post addresses a recent example. This week the Guardian published an article entitled : Domestic abuse survivors ‘having to pay for abusers to see children’  The strapline ran :  ‘London victims’ commissioner calls for overhaul of family courts, including child contact...

Businesses faced with a ransom threat face a difficult decision, but going into it with open eyes and a clear decision-making strategy can help ensure you make the right move. Ransom attacks have become big business for cyber criminals. The sums now being demanded, and often paid, are getting higher and the threats more alarming. The criminals don’t just encrypt systems and offer the keys back in exchange for a ransom; they now typically steal personal data and confidential information and then publish it if the ransom is not paid. Those faced with a ransom attack are often faced with a moral, legal and reputational dilemma. Do they pay the criminals and restore their systems and prevent the publication of stolen information, but risk being criticised for fuelling criminal activity? Or do they take the moral high ground and refuse to pay, but face substantial operational damage and the publication of sensitive information of staff and customers, together with all the regulation and l...

On 2 November 2020, Nicol J handed down judgment in Depp v News Group Newspapers   ( [2020] EWHC 2911 (QB) ).  He held that the allegations against Mr Depp in the newspaper article which labelled him a “wife beater” were substantially true and that his claim for libel therefore failed. The Judge concluded that, while not all of the allegations of violence by Mr Depp towards Ms Heard were proven, the Defendant had established that the words complained of in their natural and ordinary meaning were substantially true and stated that “the claimant has not succeeded in his action for libel.” In his judgment, Nicol J said that “although he [the claimant] has proved the necessary elements of his cause of action in libel, the defendants have shown that what they published in the meaning which I have held the words to bear was substantially true. I have reached these conclusions having examined in detail the 14 incidents on which the defendants rely as well as the overarching consid...

Courts considering the meaning of a statement in defamation cases in which the publisher is seeking to use the defence that the publication was on a matter of public interest should adopt a flexible approach, according to the authors of the latest edition of Duncan and Neill on Defamation . The defence, detailed in section 4 of the Defamation Act 2013, replaces the common law Reynolds defence, which was abolished by section 4(6). In defamation cases, courts operate under the so-called single meaning rule – the legal fiction under which the statement at the heart of a case is held to have only one meaning – even though it is accepted that language is inherently imprecise and that different people may have differing views as to the meaning of the words complained of. The section 4 defence, say the authors, is intended to replace the Reynolds defence, although its formulation is different and requires a court to pay attention to a publisher’s belief about the public interest in makin...