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Raising Awareness of SLAPPs in the UK (Filed by Americans Connected to Microsoft)
Financial attacks against people who speak about wrongdoing
Yesterday was mentioned in passing a couple of articles from the British media. Both are recent:
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Editors unite to demand Parliament takes action on SLAPPs
Editors from The Telegraph, Guardian and others have banded together against legal bullying of media.
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Mill Media journalist faces £10,000 county court bill after exposé
Publisher, editor and reporter face £250,000 High Court libel claim.
Both of them show that the British law has flaws and they're exploited to punish people who do good work. To quote more from the latter:
Freelance journalist Cormac Kehoe is also being sued personally for £250,000 in libel damages alongside editor Joshi Herrmann and publisher Mill Media Ltd.
The publisher of newsletter-based local news website The Londoner has been hit with a flurry of legal letters since writing about the alleged activities of Claudio De Giovanni.
So they go after the author, not just the publication. This happened in the case of the Spectator. This is clearly very abusive. It won't end until politicians step in.
A reader suggested that I contact the above journalists e.g. Reporter Alice Brooker (alice.brooker@pressgazette.co.uk) from the contacts page, as "she might know or could find out who does know" how to petition for greater awareness. "I'd encourage that," said the reader.
So my wife and I got the ball rolling:
Dear Alice Brooker,I found or got your contact from https://pressgazette.co.uk/contact/ My wife and I suffered two SLAPPs from the US in one year
How can we add ourselves to https://pressgazette.co.uk/media_law/anti-slapps-national-newspaper-editors-letter-kings-speech/?
In the coming years we'll go what we can to raise awareness of this problem and tackle it. It meanwhile seems like more nations, including the US and several Asian countries, widen the access for SLAPPs instead of tackling the issue. █
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