…were covered in an interesting discussion event I attended last week. It was organised by the Open Rights Group and the British Computer Society.

The event was built around the ideas put forward in Professor Jonathan Zittrain’s book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It and Jonathan was joined by technology journo Bill Thompson and chair Becky Hogge, the Executive Director of the ORG.

Rather than me write up my half-remembered interpretations, the wonders of modern technology can save me a lot of work by transporting you right there: the whole event was recorded and you can listen on the ORG website.

The Channel 4 News website has an article about a new IPPR report on children’s use of teh internets (Young people ‘are being raised online’). The news story avoids much of the usual scaremongering, although it’s typical of the IPPR to suggest that because “parents need to be reassured about what they are looking at” the Government must intervene.

There’s some high class, in depth research in the report too:

The researchers found that on YouTube, a search for the term “happy slap” delivered 117 videos posted in the last week and “street fight” 312 videos.

My motivation for highlighting this story, though, is to draw attention to Channel 4 News’s own bizarre interpretation of the law online, as revealed in the final paragraph:

Unlike television programmes, internet content is not subject to any legal restrictions such as the Obscene Publications Act, Sexual Offences Act, and laws relating to race hatred, defamation and libel.

Really? I mean, really?

Some of these laws may be enforced in different ways, and some specific to other media (for example, video classification laws) may not apply, but the idea that I can state that Jon Snow eats newborn babies in order to feed his unquenchable bloodlust (important legal disclaimer: he doesn’t) and not be risking a libel action is absurd.

Of course internet content is subject to legal restrictions, although these will vary from country to country. That’s how file-sharers swapping copyrighted material have been prosecuted; that’s how a UKIP parliamentary candidate won a libel action over posts on a Yahoo! forum. To suggest that these laws don’t apply is pretty irresponsible.

*Just to be clear: I have no reason to think TV treasure Jon Snow eats babies.