Outdated and unjust libel laws

If someone accuses someone of something, surely it makes sense that they should have evidence to back it up?

There may be more to the case than I'm understanding, but if someone accused me of xyz I don't see why I should have to prove them wrong, otherwise we'd have people sueing companies all the time just to make them prove things.

Imagine microsoft having to constantly prove that they don't deliberately spread viruses to make people buy their new products, or mcdonalds having to prove that each individual shop doesnt have a rat.

Sounds like it would be a mess.

*That's not to say I'm any sort of fan of companies who promote provably unscientific products or tipsters who use provably unscientific tips for that matter. I'm just not sure how the law would be better the other way around.

i'm with lori on this.

if someone calls me a cnt i'd like the law to presume i'm not and the person to prove that i am.

surely simon singh is allowed to voice his opinion on chiropracty?

what next ,me gettign sued by labour becasue I say 'socialism doesn't work?'

I can understand libel laws for malicious rumours against people but against ideas and practises ? ridiculous

it seems in this case libel laws are being used to suppress debate which is never a good idea.

that's a fair point. it'll be interesting to see if he loses how the court quantifies any damages! they might award them a notional £1 :D

I agree entirely, it just seems that the alternatives to the law might be worse than what we have.

It's certainly a pain having to word everything in a manner that doesn't create a lawsuit and I hope he wins, however he should probably have stuck to the facts and let the reader decide.

The Simon Singh case is one case amongst many that cause consternation. Unless today's appeal fails, he has to prove that the BCA knowingly promoted unproven pseudo-medicine, not that the medicine is unproven, which it is. How is he meant to prove what the BCA knew? Surely the onus should be on the BCA to prove that either their stuff works or that they did not know that it didn't if a man is to be found guilty of a crime.

This is one case but there are plenty of others. http://www.libelreform.org/who-is-silenced gives a good list.

Libel laws function perfectly well in other countries. Ours is anomalous to the extent that certain US states do not recognise UK libel judgements.

Well I'm clearly out of my depth. You've raised my awareness and I'll take a look.

Singh is right, and I have no munny so please sue me.

Would they still have a case if he said " I think chiropractic is bogus"? As he would obviously be telling the truth.

I remember a legal trick where you can accuse someone of something by beginning a sentence with "I cannot believe that you..."

chiropractic is not bogus. I have benefitted from it on a number of occasions, and it has improved my quality of life greatly. It's not the only method of treating back pain, of course.

Thank God the law is as it is, to protect us all from libellers.
Calling someone's life work bogus is not "debate", but a very grave allegation.

There are a lot of people on the BF forum who hurl such allegations around without any regard for evidence whatever. This is nothing to be proud of. Because we see a lot of this behaviour on here, doesn't make it legitimate or something we should copy.

First of all, ordinary libel isn't a crime, it's a civil matter.
Saying something is bogus is not the same as saying you think it doesn't work, it is plainly an accusation of a much more serious kind. Here are some online dictionary definitions:
bogus:

Adjective

1. fraudulent; having a misleading appearance [syn: **, phony, phoney, fake ]

Source: WordNet 3.0

Adjective

1. Spurious; fictitious; sham; -- a cant term originally applied to counterfeit coin, and hence denoting anything counterfeit.


It is a sad fact that many of the worst charlatans are very prone to speaking for corrupt orthodoxy and calling it "science". With the Spanish Inquisition wound up, they struggle to find a suitable occupation.

Do you also believe in Homeopathy?

Singh was specifically criticising the British Chiropractic Association's claims that it can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, ear infections and asthma which he claims there is a lack of evidence to support.

WPE - a misguided person reading your contributions to this thread might conclude that you are merely an internet troll, but I am sure that cannot be the case :^0

Singh did not merely say "lack of evidence", did he? Please study the above definition of "bogus".

The asterisked synonym was "b@st@rd"

Moonlight, the point of the article was to alert people to the claims of the chiropracters that they can treat all manner of illnesses that they clearly can't. There are a number of claims contained in the BCAs own website (although some now appear to have been removed), which should not be left unchallenged. Singh wrote...

"You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments."

He then refers to a number of scientific peer-reviewed articles that show that there is little or no evidence for the BCA claims. He then also refers to a further peer-reviewed study that shows some adverse affects from spine manipulation (chiropractic), as well as detailing a case where someone died and the coroner concluded that she died "of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occured in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck."

Whether chiropractic is somebody's life work or not does not make it immune from criticism. This was not some half-baked, ill thought out attack on a proven form of treatment. Singh was trying to put forward the case that the BCA was advocating treatments that were unproven and not what they were claimed to be. The word "bogus" in that context does not seem unreasonable. UK libel laws should not prevent the publication of these sort of articles. Claims such as those made by the BCA should be open to question and should be examined scientifically.

:D

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7294539/Simon-Singh-it-is-too-late-for-me-but-libel-laws-must-change-for-the-public-good.html

another column about it.

The word "bogus" in that context does not seem unreasonable.
Simon needs to get his dictionary out. Bogus means fraudulent.
If you publicly allege fraud, you have to prove fraud. SImple.

Nothing whatever to do with whether chiropractic can actually help with these problems, or with problems in the law.

The libel laws have cost the gutter press millions, and they would love to fvck them up, so they could accuse anybody of anything and get away with it. Waken up and smell the dogsh1t.

If the libel laws are weakened, the national press would soon descend to the level of the Horse Racing Forum!

The first problem is clear. A libel case is so horrendously expensive that most writers, scientists and journalists cannot afford to defend their writing, even if they are convinced it is accurate and important. These costs can easily run to over £1 million and are wholly disproportionate to the damages involved, which might be less than £10,000.

A study by Oxford University found that English libel cases cost over one hundred times more than those on mainland Europe. This is even more shocking when you bear in mind that defendants can still be £100,000 out of pocket even if they win because there are always legal costs that cannot be recouped from the other side. And, of course, nobody ever recovers the lost time.

I quite agree that the law should be made more affordable.

who cares

Apart from the problems with producing scientific criticism, if you want to write on this forum and you want it to continue, you should care.

just on ch4 news. Simon Singh won and was "fair comment"

Holocaust denial would be an interesting case to try to disprove. If someone says it doesnt happen, how they can they prove it didn't. It would surely be for those who say it did to prove that it did in order to prove that person wrong.

Similarly is being an atheist being libellous against the Church/ Islam etc ? If you say that God doesn't exist then surely it is for the other side to prove that God does exist, not the other way around.

Hang on a sec. How does this Simon Singh guy *know* its bogus?? Certainly the lack of any scientific evidence cannot be supposed to suffice. There is no scientific evidence that any of us are conscious, but we are!

If he merely is expressing an opinion rather than making a definitive statement then this is of course entirely different.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

If I told you there are fairies in my garden, but they are invisible, you can't hear them, they have no smell etc. most people would assume I am**ers, but when people make the same claim about a god, that's ok?

But what is an extraordinary claim depends on ones underlying metaphysical assumptions about the nature of reality.

The meaning of the word bogus is clear, Singh's success is a tragedy for the right of free speech imo. The establishment judges have come through for the vicious "debunkers" who really work for big business against the rest of us.