This week is
Banned Books Week in America, where various organisations support free speech by reading, writing, and talking about books that have been banned in the USA for various reasons (usually moral). I've lived in the UK for three years, and the sense of outrage seems much more muted - that British reserve again, I presume - perhaps because fewer books have been banned in the UK in general. The most notable seems to be
Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was banned both in the USA and UK for sexual explicitness (the British ban was lifted in 1960).
Banning literature based on 'moral values' seems really
passé and socially unacceptable these days - what's taken its place in the UK appears to be the popularity of
'libel tourism', the hearing of defamation cases in England and Wales when the alleged defamation of Person A has been published in Country B, and neither of them actually have anything much to do with the United Kingdom.
"The law has not kept pace with the way in which the media have become internationalised. Our libel courts have fired the starting gun on a race to the bottom." Consign libel tourism to the dustbin of history, Times Online
Thankfully, the apparent unsuitability of current defamation legislation seems to have gained the attention of Britain's lawmakers, but while people are talking about it,
nothing seems to have been done as yet to clamp down on wealthy plaintiffs essentially harassing and stifling the ability of independent groups and authors to report and critique their activities.
On the other hand, the sheer proliferation of opinion and reporting available today - especially on the Internet - means that there will be irresponsible people who will make wild claims and defame others, and those who have been defamed should have the right to sue.
We really need to strike a balance between protecting the right to free speech (that is properly researched and reported) and the rights of those who have been defamed - as opposed to those who don't like having their rather dirty laundry aired in public.
