Public Affairs Committee Blog

In many ways blogs are the ultimate expression of free speech. They do not have to pass through the sanitising mind of an editor. Instead they are published directly onto the internet, directly to the reader. The best political blogs combine personal insights with cutting political comment, some of which might be too forthright for the mainstream press.

In this context it is interesting to note that some bloggers are now proposing codes of conduct for blogging itself. They tend to espouse common sense. Bloggers are advised, for example, not to respond to offensive comments and not to say anything about someone that they would not be prepared to say in person. Of course, like the pirate code, these are guidelines rather than binding rules.

However, the bigger question arises as to whether we should be limiting something as important as free speech any further than is already done by the law of the land. It is already illegal, for example, to incite racial hatred, to defame a reputation and sometimes to breach a person’s privacy. Such laws have very often been brought about after years of debate and refined further through the mechanism of the common law. On the other hand, blogging codes of conduct are nothing of the sort. They exist to limit free speech far more than the checks imposed by law and for that reason we should beware.

Ultimately free speech is one of the most important rights that we have. It is fundamental to a functioning democracy. Allowing different views to be expressed helps us to arrive at our own opinion. That is why, subject to the law of the land, free speech should be protected, even in the blogosphere.

Tim Kevan and Aidan Ellis