{"id":50761,"date":"2020-06-15T07:40:42","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T06:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=50761"},"modified":"2020-06-15T07:40:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T06:40:42","slug":"how-long-before-fake-news-libel-becomes-commonplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/06\/15\/how-long-before-fake-news-libel-becomes-commonplace\/","title":{"rendered":"How long before &#8216;fake news libel&#8217; becomes commonplace?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Guardian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jun\/15\/maria-ressa-rappler-editor-found-guilty-of-cyber-libel-charges-in-philippines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports this morning<\/a> that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of the Philippines\u2019 most prominent journalists,\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/maria-ressa\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Maria Ressa<\/a>, is facing up to six years in prison after she was found guilty on Monday of \u201ccyber libel\u201d charges, a verdict condemned as setting \u201can extraordinarily damaging precedent\u201d for press freedoms in the region.<\/p>\n<p>The case, widely seen as an attempt to muzzle the media, followed a complaint by a businessman about a story written five years earlier about his alleged ties to a then-judge in the nation\u2019s top court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What is the significance?<\/p>\n<p>First of all, for press freedom in the Philipines, which was already under threat, it is dire.<\/p>\n<p>Second, for Maria Ressa, a gross injustice is being done.<\/p>\n<p>Third, it's only time before right-wing thugs copy each other. How long before 'fake news libel' becomes commonplace and press freedom disappears?<\/p>\n<p>Fourth, blog freedom goes as well in that case, of course.<\/p>\n<p>As, fifth, does democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Worry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Guardian reports this morning that: One of the Philippines\u2019 most prominent journalists,\u00a0Maria Ressa, is facing up to six years in prison after she was<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/06\/15\/how-long-before-fake-news-libel-becomes-commonplace\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,16,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-ethics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}