Leveson's missed opportunity

The Leveson Report into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the phone hacking scandal was for many a massive anti-climax. Having experienced a media bloodbath and heard evidence from victims, it could be no surprise as to what Lord Justice Leveson would recommend.

It wasn’t so much what was recommended but what wasn’t. In Chapter 3 Part C of Part I of the report: ‘Alternative news providers’ deals with blogs, other web-based commentary and social networking sites. It rightly opens by recording that: “The media landscape, particularly the provision of news, both globally and in the UK has been transformed by the invention and phenomenal development of the internet.”

As opposed to the declining readership of the press, 74 per cent of adults in the UK have access to broadband and 22 per cent of all the time that adults spend engaging with media is spent on the internet, with this figure rising to 30 per cent for those aged between 16-24.

Mail Online, the Associated Newspapers website is the most successful of the UK media’s online offerings and has now obtained a huge following. Concern was expressed to the inquiry that because the internet is unregulated it creates an imbalance with market consequences between what could be written in the newspapers and published on websites hosted abroad. The photographs of a playful Prince Harry which were posted all over the internet proved the point.

Leveson LJ did refer to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), based in California, at which the UK government is represented, and also to Ofcom regulation of access to internet services and other forms of regulation but acknowledged that in broad terms the internet was unregulated and that, “This relative lack of internet specific regulation is unlikely to change.” Why? In part because the internet is perceived by government as a key driver of future economic growth.

What regulation there is beyond that described is self regulation. The cooperation given to the police by Twitter in solving criminality was cited as an example. Where there has been legislation this has been in response to European legislation intended to protect the privacy of users.

The Huffington Post UK is unique in having opted to subscribe to the PCC. It is the only solely online news provider to have elected to this and did so in September 2011. Popbitch, which comments on the lighter side of celebrity culture and Guido Fawkes, which focuses on parliamentary rumour, do not subscribe to the PCC. Then there is Google, the largest of the search engines. The limit of its regulation is within its terms and conditions and a notice and take down policy. Any lawyer who has tried to achieve this for a client knows just how laborious a process it is. It is, however, the social networking sites which currently seize the imagination. Social network services provide a means for users to interact online, through email and instant messaging. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are all social network sites. The damage done by a tweet can be substantial, as users who have tweeted about Lord McAlpine have discovered to their cost. It cannot be ignored, though. After all, the Pope has ?just joined up – @pontifex – so the sky’s? the limit.

Leveson LJ’s conclusions can be found in Volume II Chapter 7 at page 736 under the heading: “The relevance of the Internet”. He records that many editors argue that the burgeoning of the internet is likely to render much of the work of the inquiry irrelevant. They must be right. It is a mystery why he chooses to describe the internet as an “ethical vacuum” as opposed to the “wild west” which is far more evocative of the state of affairs that exists. The internet has no boundaries, no moral or ethical code and yet it is the most powerful world medium of communication on the planet.

Tirelessly, and accurately, recording the failures of the press is one thing but the report lacks any vision as to the future. As correctly described, what he has done is old news. There are no surprises in his report and his conclusions are inevitable and predictable. He is wrong to say that readers of newspapers will believe what they read is true but not on the internet, because there is none of the notional imprimatur or kitemark which comes from being the publisher of a respected broadsheet or, in its different style, an equally respected mass circulation tabloid. He is also wrong about the qualitative difference between a photograph on the internet as opposed to in The Sun. Many never read newspapers now but they are constantly on the internet. The damage is greater because it receives worldwide circulation.

It is a masterful understatement to say that enforcement in relation to the internet is “problematic”. The disappointment in this report is that though compliant with his remit Leveson LJ did give guidance on the internet. Fleet Street has already gone beyond the point of no return and the controls he recommends are predictable. The lost opportunity was that of addressing the far bigger problem – an internet with no frontiers, no moral or ethical controls and a beast far more dangerous that Fleet Street could ever be.