Have had a number of requests so far from candidates/election agents to take down their 2011 election material from the site #ge16
— Alan Kinsella (@electionlit) September 14, 2015
Should politicians be able to invoke copyright in order to conceal their past promises? Asks copyright lawyer and digital rights expert TJ McIntyre (above), who adds on his blog:
Irish politicians are getting nervous. Although the government still insists it will serve out its full term, insiders are muttering about the possibility of a post-budget snap election.
It’s no coincidence, therefore, that they are now looking to clean up their online presence and two stories from this week are particularly telling.
First Alan Kinsella, of the invaluable Irish Election Literature website, tweeted (above):
Second, an anonymous user from an Oireachtas IP address attempted a systematic (but ultimately unsuccessful) whitewashing of the Wikipedia entry for Senator Jim Walsh, deleting all reference to various gaffes by him through the years.
There’s nothing new about attempts to suppress unfavourable information about Irish politicians – and the current stories are nowhere near the seriousness of the recent incident in which the aide to Derek Keating TD dumped several thousand copies of a local freesheet containing a critical story about his boss.
But these examples still raise interesting issues for lawyers. In the case of the Irish Election Literature website – should politicians be able to invoke what would presumably be a copyright argument in order to conceal their past promises?
In the case of Wikipedia, should edits made by TDs, Senators or their staff about themselves be disclosed? Wikipedia certainly thinks so.
More generally, how should Irish law deal with sites such as Politwoops which archive deleted tweets from politicians? Is Twitter correct in saying that politicians should be able to delete their ill thought out tweets without that fact being highlighted – or should we accept that what politicians say is inherently newsworthy?
The Irish courts have yet to confront most of these issues – but it will be interesting to see what happens in an ongoing case brought by a Dublin election candidate who has invoked the “right to be forgotten” against online discussion of his election literature. Hopefully this will result in a judicial statement affirming the strong public interest in political discussion.’
EDIT FIGHT!
Whitewashing Your Internet Profile (TJ McIntyre)
Thanks Nelly Bergman
Meanwhile….
This afternoon
Austrian law student Max Schrems outside the Four Courts.
Leah writes:
The High Court has quashed a decision by the Data Protection Commissioner to refuse to investigate a data privacy complaint by Max Schrems against Facebook. Max is an Austrian privacy activist who campaigns against Facebook for privacy violation, including its violations of European privacy laws and alleged transfer of personal data to the US National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the NSA’s PRISM programme…
(Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie)
Fine Gael TD, Regina Doherty’s Wikipedia page was recently edited from within Leinster House to remove references to her company going bust and owing the Revenue money.
I see that has since be re-edited to mention the company going bust again…. but also a new snippet about Mairia Cahill and alleged covering up of abuse by former IRA members.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_Doherty
Thanks Mr T.
http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?16411-Fine-Gael-and-Sex-Abuse&s=4c2c4b80c6b8b038fa3e4edf0d6b00fe#.ViZ8DNm9Kc0
I’m sure we can look forward to a future version of Labour trying to scrub almost everything Joan Burton & Alan Kelly ever said while in power this term.
Visions of la Burton attempting to scrub the steps of Leinster House…
Highlighting they want the info removed will show they have something to hide…
Or … like hedgerow creatures they are just shy.
The ‘right to be forgotten’ story is really interesting, well worth clicking on the link to McIntyre’s blog commentary on it. Also for added reader pleasure, the subject himself pops up in the comments, apparently determined to leave as large a trail of breadcrumbs as possible across the internet :-D
Here’s some more for you..!
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ponytail-man-fails-in-gender-bias-case-appeal-26424219.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/26a486/mark_savage_north_county_dublins_homophobic/
Its a very good point. Its the law (to whatever degree and for whatever reason).
Enda kenny’s page would need to wiped out entirely then. A born liar.
“Meeeeeeeeeeemory, all alone in the moonliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
I can dream of the old daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays
Life was beautiful theeeeeeeen”
-La STREISAND
Elaine Paige matey!
Au contraire.
When La STREISAND covers something, it retcons all previous attempts.
Not that song. Streisand couldn’t do it justice. You can’t beat perfection!
I don’t engage with blaspheming heretics >_<
When the as yet unborn remnants of humanity scratch their thoughts on uranium-bleached walls in a vain attempt to pinpoint the cause of Armageddon, it will be this: the Streisandanistas versus the Paigeists.
ahjayzis – she’s more of a shrieker than a singer
*ducks*
As I said, i don’t engage with the unenlightened. It’s my right.
IT’S A RIIIIIIIIIGHT I DEFEEEEEEEEND. OVER AND OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIN….
I just listened to her version. You can tell she’s singing it for the money, there’s no heart in it at all. It’s like she can’t even imagine being a dying cat singing about her dancing heydays.
Bar could sing for a bag of chips it’d still leave that Paige wagon in ha’penny place!
Maybe she can if it’s limited to wishy 70s movies. But she has nothing to contribute to cat musicals except conjuring hairballs.
Streisand, in this case, is more effective
No.
Gurlfriend. Please.
Paige is so non-iconic she doesn’t even have Effect named after her.
She’s not a bit of a funny girl either.
That’s because Elaine is a lady not an attention-seeker
You know her so well.
:P
Paige & Streisand can eat Rebecca Storm’s dust.
Pfft, she’s hasn’t been a cat once!
What’s a Rebecca Storm?
Surely if someone posts a leaflet in through your letterbox it becomes your property to do with as you will – like pass on to Alan Kinsella to archive on the internet.
You can’t blame the public for wanting to call out politicians on failed election promises and outright lies told to get elected.
@ahjayzis & Don: *cracks open craft beer and artisan popcorn and waits for it to kick-off: two exiles enter the octagon, only one shall leave*
“a decision by the Data Protection Commissioner to refuse to investigate a data privacy complaint by Max Schrems against Facebook.”
I didn’t even hear about that. This country is just a mini version of the US. *Southern* US.
In fairness, it is kind of a big deal.I’m in the other class action suit myself.
Is this like deleting a raft of comments on the rte thread?
Not in the slightest. Broadsheet is private property, and the owners have the right to post whereby they want, to allow comments or not, and to remove comments add they see fit. If you had a blog on your own website and posted the same thing you put in the comments here, with a relevant link for reference, broadsheet couldn’t demand you remove it.
By comparison, this is public officials attempting to whitewash their embarrassing history, to wit public statements on their alleged intents should they get into power, published on websites that they don’t own.
Think you missed my initial point Lorcan which wasn’t really anything to do with politicians.
However you say:
Broadsheet is private property, and the owners have the right to post whereby they want, to allow comments or not, and to remove comments add they see fit.
The above posts bemoans twitter for acting exactly like this.
And Twitter hav every right to remove whatever content people post. Same as Facebook. The problem there is that Facebook (which was mentioned rather than Twitter) tend to allow famous and important people to delete their contentious comments – there’s one rule for them and one for the rest of us. By comparison, Google have a “right to forget” rule in Europe that anyone can access, though it is also problematic in terms of its implications for public figures erasing their past.
There’s also the problem mentioned in the post that people are suing websites for copyright infringement in order to get public statements that are embarassing in hindsight removed from the internet. Many blogs and news aggregators have very low budgets and can’t afford to fight a legal battle, even though they’ll probably win in the end, so they give in to the demand to pull the material.
They have to protect free speech.
Broadsheet do not have to protect free speech. They do have to protect themselves from being sued though.
Free speech is the freedom to say what you want without government persecution. It is not the right to use somebody else’s platform to spread your views if they disagree,
Too easy!
Surely they can’t do that?
That’s like deleting history?
I think you’ll find they prefer “managing history”.
Ah, well I suppose that’s okay then.
Legislation should be passed that all successful candidates have their manifestoes re-published prior to their next attempt to run for office, so that they can be closely questioned on all promises and what attempts they have made to keep them.
If elected, I shall put forward such a bill. I promise.
That Max fella looks like a smug bastard.
Incidently if they made promises and never kept them and were voted into
Public Office is that not deception and why is there not action taken to disbar
them and make them forfeit what ever salary and expenses they were paid
while holding offices of Public Trust.
Oh I notice John Perry TD failed to get a nomination, have the Blueshirts ditched him
Has been stuck repeating 3rd year business studies? He’s a feckin perpetual student.