Greek Bloggers, Lawsuits and the Future
Published by deviousdiva February 26th, 2008 in Blogging.Don’t Kiss The Frog has an extremely interesting (and rather worrying) post up about Greek bloggers and new laws which are being drawn up.
according to the Eleftheros Typos newspaper, the government has already prepared legislation to deal with the issue of bloggers gone wild. The new law will treat informational(sic) blogs like newspapers. The name of the person legally responsible for the blog’s contents should appear in a visible place. No more anonymity for them informational blog bastards. And if they ruthlessly insist on anonymity, the new law will make it much-much easier for the authorities to obtain a court order for their ISP-related data.
UPDATE: Also read another post on the subject up at A Division by Zer0
The most scary thing of all, of course, is that the goverment is now considering putting limits on free speech. This is exactly what the big media companies (and Televangelist/Telemarketers) want. Specifically, they are going to request people that blog about “informative issues” remain eponymous. If they still wish to remain anonymous then it will be much easier for the goverment to violate their rights and find out who they are.
Technorati: greece, greek bloggers, law, legal issues, blogging
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Wow. that is baloney. does greek have any blogger’s rights groups at all??? seems like if there isn’t any, now is the time to start getting some–holy crap!!!!!
eek, sorry about the multiple spelling errors up there!!! that would be does “GREECE” have any bloggers rights groups!!!
No, that blog is a disgrace. It is designed to evade Greek laws and allow libellous anonymous attacks, mostly on politicians. There is also a page on me there, filled with anonymous personal attacks. Did they really think they could ignore Greek law, at the same time as attacking all the political parties?
If the blog in question is breaking the law then it is quite correct that they should be taken to court. I only read it when they posted about you Martin, a while back so I can’t speak with any authority on the rest of its content but if that is what it’s like then… it’s appalling.
What scares me is that the proposed anti-anonymous blogging law could have serious implications for all bloggers here in Greece. I choose to blog anonymously because of threats made against me not the other way round. I should have the right to protect myself online if I am doing nothing wrong.
I will be watching closely and will keep you posted on any developments. If anyone is following this in the Greek press, please keep me informed. Thank you.
As I have understood the proposals, they would require an individual to be named as the blog-owner, and this person to be legally responsible for defamatory material posted. First of all, I don’t think that includes idiots’ comments; secondly, you would not permit such comments on your blog anyway.
The press-gr blog was set up, unlike normal blogs, so that anyone could anonymously post actual blogs there. The anonymous posters had their ip addresses concealed, and the owner of the website was not known. They traced the physical address for the police to raid through an ip address from Google servers [it is supposedly the editor of a major Greek newspaper]. The whole thing is a disgrace, yet quite a few of my Greek friends approve of it because it has juicy scandals every other page.
Exactly. The problem is not the libelous writings or press-gr which most of the time were obviously false to anyone paying attention. I don’t have a problem with people following the extent of the law and persecuting liars (although I do believe it is unnecessary as when a blog lies too much, people figure it our eventually and leave).
What I am opposed to is throwing out the baby with the bathwater so to speak. Anonymous blogging is, very often, necessary, as in the case of DD and this is a right that should remain strong.
Yes, anonymous blogging is normal in all the western world. I doubt that Greece would be able to get away with requiring the names of all bloggers: such a law would probably end up in the European courts fairly rapidly. The strange thing is that I haven’t heard of anything like the press-gr blog anywhere else in Europe: maybe the generally stricter controls over police access to ip addresses discourages that.
Did you know that for several years now, to use an internet cafe in Italy you have to produce a passport and the cafe logs your details onto the computer you use? This is so that the police can trace emails or whatever to internet cafes and catch “the terrorists” with their passports.
I am really shocked by some of things I’m reading about anonymity while blogging. Martin’s example from Italy above and a comment over at db0’s blog mentioning that in Germany
I had no idea. Am I the only one ?
I wonder what the rules are in other European countries…
Although I agree that slanderous bloggers should be punished, I don’t want to see all bloggers punished or monitored for no reason.
However, it will be difficult to really stop blog owners from being anonymous. All anyone has to do is set up a blog in the USA and then Greece won’t have jurisdiction, since in the states, we have freedom of speech. How do you do this?
METHOD #1: Set up a basic internet (dial up) account with a company such as MSN, Netzero, etc in the USA etc. Some are as cheap at 9.95 USD per month, and immediately give you access into their network without the typical “Greek company” waiting times. Plus you can be billed thru your credit card monthly.
Then, what you do is connect to the American company’s internet access number from your computer (in Greece) and then you are connected in the American service provider’s dial up network. You set up your initial blog, post your blog articles etc., from inside the American service provider’s network, and then you disconnect. Of course, in addition to the monthly ISP charge, you will be charged long distance phone rates to connect to the USA from your computer in Greece. But, generally, you would prepare the blog article ahead of time and then just copy and paste the article into your blog to limit the actual connection time.
For example, Diva, if one of your readers (from within Greece) visited your blog (from Greece) using this method, and you tried to track their IP address, you’d see that their IP address originated from within the USA.
METHOD #2: Have a friend or relative set it up for you in the USA and you email your blog Articles directly to your friend and he posts em for you.
I find it highly unlikely that an American service provider would give the private details of one of it’s customers to Greek authorities strictly on the basis that the blogger was remaining anonymous.
Thank you Philip for your information. It sounds like a total headache to have to take those measures (not to mention the cost) but if things go belly up here, there are options.
I do have a question for people. Don’t Kiss the Frog mentioned the ridiculous ban on video games a few years ago
I remember when my gamer friends heard about the law, most of them just laughed but some were very worried (some were involved in serious gaming and even in game development). I am sure those caught up in the nonsense took it very seriously and were quite rightly scared to death about being sued.
But then it did blow over.
Perhaps this will be the case here ?
What do people think ?
Has the gaming thing blown over? I think there are still some problems… The actual motivation of the legislator was valid, but the formulation of the law was [and remains] ridiculous.
The fear is that the same could happen with the blogging issue: that they might use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The access to the ip data given by Americans (Google) was, in the case of press-gr, given only on the basis of criminal indictment. Probably it would have happened more quickly in the UK, where anti-terrorism and anti-paedophile laws allow easy police access to ip addresses. At this time, I recently recall reading, by law the Greek police cannot even identify paedophiles from Greek ip addresses. So, the big issue is how the Greek state is going to improve its legitimate need to control aspects of internet use while maintaining civil rights of normal users.
And here is the Europe-wide debate on computers and surveillance [well. a few countries and some mention of computers]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7265212.stm
Phillip: a simpler and cheaper way is to use a public proxy server, as this old Slate article describes: http://www.slate.com/id/2080681/
Well, I don’t see how they can *require* you to have your real name visible on the blog. If you have some sort of contact information, they can just contact you that way, give you an official phone number to call, and deal with it from there.
Or just use Tor
Latest on government proposals [in English]. I have to say that I support what they are proposing, provided that there are legal safeguards…
http://ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/.....2008_93905