8degrees of vaughan rowsell

Internet name suppression

August 30, 2008 at 10:48 am In Rants, Web, No Comments

It is amazing how anyone can think you can suppress anything on the Internet that is in the public domain, astounding. I am referring to Judge David Harvey who has put an Internet only suppression on naming the two murder suspects in relation to the murder of Weymouth 14-year-old John Hapeta, but TV and print is okay.

I think the idea being so people could not google them and be prejudiced prior to the trial perhaps?. What? The media are reporting only what is plainly public domain, like the fact they are accused of the murder of John Hapeta. Anything else someone is likely to find about the two men is already there. Will this stop people blogging about the trial? No. Will it stop people talking about it? No. Will it stop people thinking about it? No.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but are we entitled to free speech still? I can respect name suppression in general, and understand its importance, but is this a little half-arsed? By last count, I have found atleast 10 posts online already naming the men, plus stuff.co.nz is already openly naming them online (UPDATE: this only lasted a couple of hours, and they have now removed the names from the article). Once you have one you might as well have 100,000. It is near impossible to police and to stop. The Internet has a memory and does not forget. In fact the more you try and conceal something online, the more prolific it becomes, why? Just because people don’t like to be told not to do something, or think something.

So why did Judge David Harvey pick this case? I am not sure. It is no more high profile than any other case at the moment or in recent history. It is not Internet related. Perhaps it is because these fellows have fairly uncommon names and would be easily googled? Well the only posts online I found about either were the above posts and articles naming them in connection with the murder. Is it to test the waters a little? The media were all taken aback by this one. Perhaps Judge David Harvey, trying to establish a precedent, was slipping this one through?

Seriously, I can’t for a moment think that Judge David Harvey is a fool, in fact I suspect he is quite smart and he is very aware of what will come out of this, people will post online the details, the media will challenge him, and there will be a good deal of discussion over the idea of suppression on the Internet of case details and accused identities.

Perhaps there are one or more points being made here. Here is one.

Does new media creates challenges for a legal system that is built on some basic premises, one being you will be judged by a jury with a relatively unbiased point of view. Once upon a time you picked from the “peers” of the accused a jury, stuck them in a room and they deliberated, went home, perhaps caught the six-o-clock news, and read some stuff about the case in the paper, went back to court and deliberated some more. Today a juror can google anything. They can find the accused on Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn. They can read blogs about the accused, and the case itself. They can do this from their computer, or their mobile phone, from home, the court, on the way to the court. There are no rules about what you and I can write about online, and if you do think someone is guilty and have a strong opinion you have every right to say so, don’t you? It’s your opinion. It may be unqualified, but it is your opinion and your right. But could this influence the opinion of that juror? Is that okay? Is that part of being someone’s “peer” in today’s society? “Geesh, everyone blogging about the case thinks he is guilty, so he must be”. Can the Internet find someone guilty?

I don’t think this will stick and lawyers from the Herald and Fairfax will get involved, but it sure is getting the media thinking and talking about it, which I am guessing was Judge David Harvey’s goal. It may have been a bit extreme, but I am guessing he has one or two important points to make and they will come out when “the media” challenges it.