Defamation Bill to force websites to identify "trolls"

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The House of Commons is about to start debating what some call "law against trolls". This is more properly described as an amendment to the Defamation Act, and involves abusive or offesive content rather than trolls.

The amendments mean website owners would be let off the hook for offensive content if they agree to hand over user details to allow civil cases to be pursued.

PH community thoughts? Useful articles from today:

Reuters - Internet trolls face tough new UK rules
Guardian Column - What is an internet troll?

On the one hand I welcome the possibility that website owners will feel pressured to censor their members for fear of legal action (ahem!) though it will be interesting to see if anything changes in practice.

However it could mean another erosion of internet anonymity and result in people being frightened to post freely for fear of incurring legal action. Perhaps the current system of a website being responsible for all content protects people from themselves to a certain extent.

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mattnunn said:

So I think thy're going to have to create a definition for troll other than someone who disagrees with someone somewhere at some time.

Quite, the media has been lazy and just used the term troll when they mean people who post libellous content. The big difference is the shift of responsibility away from website owners.

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Most people are not behind proxies and would not know how to set one up even if they wanted to though.