On how anonymity is used, I have friends who are teachers who use pseudonyms online when they talk about political issues. A whole host of other people use them, such as immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and survivors of domestic abuse use them to ensure that their abusive partner is not aware of what they are communicating online. I do not want anonymity to be seen as a trivial issue or as something that is only a tool for the malicious or the nefarious.
Also, as for state interests, it is not anonymity itself that is making foreign interference an issue; it is slack regulation and lack of transparency in how these platforms and processes work. The issue cannot be laid solely at the door of anonymity. Facebook has its much-maligned real-names policy, albeit that it is pretty flawed, and Facebook is still a target for what are to date unknown actors. Anonymity itself is not the necessary and sufficient facilitator of evil.
We also have a problem with what the SLC’s draft bill has to say about the court’s power to require removal of a statement. We think that the power should be much narrower. We appreciate that the court can and should order the removal of content, if it is deemed to be defamatory, but what is removed should be the line, paragraph or link that was argued about; there should still be editorial control over whether the overall piece can stand without that line or paragraph.
We are also very worried about the SLC’s view that
“the court should be given power at any stage of defamation proceedings ... to order removal or cessation of distribution etc. In an appropriate case such an order could be granted at an interim stage, before the final outcome of the proceedings has been determined.”
That is incredibly problematic, largely because there is nothing in the bill or the explanatory notes that establishes the mechanism by which such an order can be reversed if the complained-of statement is deemed not to be defamatory. The removal of something before a judgment has been made on it is problematic, in our opinion.