Alistair
McAlpine has instructed lawyers. They
have settled with the BBC – for £185k plus both sides’ costs, with
statements to follow – and are
now poring over Twitter. For the latter, this is something new and
potentially very important, although exactly how m’Learned friends can go after
someone who merely observes that a name is trending could be a difficult one to
prove.
Miraculously, though, those sneering at the likes of George
Monbiot and Sally Bercow do not appear to have stopped and thought about the
potential consequences of this action. If McAlpine’s lawyers successfully
obtain redress against Monbiot and Ms Bercow, neither of whom referred to the infamous
Newsnight feature, rather more claims
could follow.
After all, McAlpine’s legal team are arguing over such
concepts as reputational damage, as well as the more straightforward ones like dishonest
and malicious defamation, and especially that which is premeditated and
therefore cannot be excused as some kind of accident. Using Twitter as a means
of spreading that kind of smear is not confined to peers of the realm.
And that is why many out there in the Twittersphere, along
with a posse of lawyers prepared to operate on a pro bono basis, are watching the McAlpine proceedings with
interest. This is because accusations of paedophilia – as well as a number of
other unsavoury smears – have been the stock in trade of some on Twitter in the
past. So what other malicious assertions have been made?
Well, for starters, there is the old chestnut of stalking. This has become the go-to term
of abuse for many who have an aversion to criticism: in order to shut the
critics up, they are smeared as “stalkers”.
The term cannot be interpreted other than as a directly pejorative one: it is
as loaded as Billy Connolly’s F-word. Yet many, including those in elective
office, bandy it about without a thought.
There are a whole range of other malicious terms deployed in
the same vein, too, but shouting “stalker”,
without any further reinforcement, is itself beyond the pale. To make such an
accusation is to equate the target with those who bombard slebs with unwanted
communications, threats, visits, and worse. It may not be quite as nasty as
shouting “paedo”, but if the latter
term is actionable, then “stalker” is
equally so.
Yet nobody seems to have woken up to this inconvenient fact.
Perhaps there is an assumption that this can be passed off as exercise of free
speech. But there is free speech, and there is hate speech. False accusations
of stalking, merely for a bit of fun or to silence someone of inconvenient
thought, are firmly in the latter category. And they are highly likely to satisfy
the reputational damage criterion.
The sneering may continue for now, but pride, remember, comes before a fall.
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