English Newspapers Self-Censor on Release of Personal Information

Last week a disgruntled former employee of the far-right British National Party (BNP) leaked his party's membership list to the public, unleashing a torrent of Internet activity as Brits scrambled to find who in their neighborhood might be members. Yet while the list remains freely available on Wikileaks.com, no major UK newspaper or blog will link to it, and few will even mention the site where it can be found. (You can read more about Wikileaks and its storied legal history here, here, and here.)
The reasons for this are partly legal, partly political. Said James Edelman, a law professor at Oxford:

“In the U.S., the starting point is that you have the right of freedom of expression. There are ways it can be curtailed, but that is the starting point. It is almost the opposite in the U.K.”

Whether the topic is national security or the sex lives of the royals, the British press has a long history of censorship or self-censorship. Yet there is not statute or case law restricting linking of potentially libelous or illegal content. What has made the English press so hesitant in this case? According to blogger Matt Wardman:

“Links to material that is alleged to be defamatory...is part of the basis for the objections that the law firm Carter-Ruck have put to the New Statesman that have caused them to take down articles about Nadhmi Auchi by Martin Bright [Auchi, an Iraqi billionaire accused of corruption, sued The Statesman for publishing links discussing the accusations]. No determination has yet been made whether that will stick under English Libel Law, but if the New Statesman and their legal advisers are taking it seriously I wouldn’t go the other way at this point. You will be relying on not being sued, which is your call.”

In effect, the mere risk of lawsuit, baseless or not, is deterring the English press from giving full background for the BNP story. Regardless, Brits are getting their information from international sites. Wikileaks, which operates outside the UK, received 70 hits per second the day the list was released.