Suppression orders and the net

Cameron Slater is now in court here in Auckland charged with breaching court suppression orders. As right-wing blogger Whale Oil, he has argued that some suppression orders are against the public's right to know and/or free speech.

This brings up some tricky issues. Does an accused have a right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty? Does someone in the media have the right to decide unilaterally that a law is wrong? Should suppression orders that apply to trad media apply to new media? Has the horse already bolted?

There is an undeniable charm about this current period we are all living through in the infancy of the internet (I'm taking a long-term view here). Anarchy appeals and virtual anarchy appeals even more as theoretically no-one gets hurt, not like the bad old days of anarchy when people got killed in real life.

But I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of someone remotely famous falsely accused of a sex crime in New Zealand right now. Chances are I'd be outed by the Cameron Slaters of this world and my reputation slashed before I even got near the chance to defend myself.

Which is not an argument for censorship or other forms of control of the net. I suspect that our current laws can be seen to be working as Slater is now in court. The judge has described Whale Oil's blogs as "like a shotgun blast, it hits the person and then other people he doesn't want to hit". Slater is arguing semantics, saying he published pictures (clues to the accused's identity) but he's not telling people how to interpret them and they're really just random online doodles. I wouldn't put money on the judge seeing it his way.

In the meantime, just for entertainment, Slater is going up against Andrew Williams in a North Shore ward in the upcoming Auckland elections. His first pledge: I will not piss on any trees.

Says it all really - about both him and Andrew Williams.