Schillings, a London Law firm, have closed down several prominent political blogs by contacting their webhosts, on behalf the new part owner of Arsenal – Alisher Usmanov. These blogs have made criticisms of Mr Usmanov. Schillings alleged that these criticisms were defamatory, and threatened legal action. Note that no court action has been taken, but the freedom to debate Mr Usmanov’s record has been taken away by the mere making of a threat.

The last times Schillings got themselves involved in the world of blogging, nearly 300 British bloggers from left, right and centre registered their disgust. You could say Schillings are not exactly flavour of the month in these parts. Or those who employ them. What an excellent way to get the attention of political bloggers. With their shared attitudes to open debate and freedom of speech New Labour and Schillings should get on famously.

(Tim has more on Draper’s quest to be ‘Labour’s Iain Dale’. He’s mimicking the methods of the exemplars of blogging very well so far.)

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Dr Andy Lewis runs a website called Quackometer: he criticised the Society of Homeopaths (Europe ’s largest professional organisation of homeopaths) in no uncertain terms.

…

In his opinion, and he amassed some examples: they do not enforce their own “Code of Practice” (you’re not even allowed to imply you can cure a named disease!) it is a figleaf; and they fail to censure their members over dangerous claims.

…

Did the SoH engage with these criticisms? Reflect on them? Challenge and rebutt them? No. They sent a threatening legal letter. Did this threatening legal letter say what was wrong with Dr Lewis’s post? No. It wasn’t even sent to him, it was sent to his hosting company Netcetera, demanding they take his page down. He contacted the SoH, very politely (I mean incredibly politely, read it here), to ask them what the problems were with his comments. No response.

Instead their lawyers sent another angry letter to his hosting company, who of course cannot investigate this in full, are strictly speaking liable, and so – good call – the page was taken down. Corporate conspiracy silences the little man: except of course his piece has now been replicated a hundred times across the internet by an army of smirking bloggers.

It really is time to close the loophole in our libel laws that make webhosts liable for the content of their servers. You don’t blame the postman when bad news arrives in the mail.

Peter Risdon has more.

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1. Alisher Usmanov and Schillings: back again
2. The Mainstream Media and Alisher Usmanov: Fair and Balanced
3. Public Service Announcement – Craig Murray, Tim Ireland, Boris Johnson, Bob Piper and Alisher Usmanov…

Well, their excellent service continues:

Cybercriminals are attempting to tarnish the reputation of a website designed to fight online money transfer frauds and other scams. UK hosts Fasthosts unwittingly played into their hands by temporarily suspending Bobbear.co.uk over the weekend in response to fraudulent emails.

I get ‘Joe Jobbed‘ from time to time. It’s a minor pain in the arse – I don’t have a reputation protect after all – but like warts tends to go away if ignored. Having a very professional, calm and collected webhost, unless their servers are being hammered by the attack, there’s no bother and things sail on as smoothly as before. Fasthosts should try it.

(Via PDF)

UPDATE: Tim has more.

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Stand by for fireworks.

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Well, they’re at it again, and this time it’s the mighty Indymedia on the receiving and of the threats.

Indymedia UK has been issued with a takedown notice [10th of September & 21st of September] from lawyers acting for Alisher Usmanov. The notice served to Indymedia charged Indymedia with publishing allegedly libellous accusations about Usmanov, one of the richest men in Russia, recently linked to a possible hostile takeover of Arsenal FC.

Obsolete says it best:

This only makes Usmanov’s charm offensive this week, involving the flying via private jet of at least 9 British journalists to his offices in Moscow, then putting them up in a five star hotel all the more shallow. He says he’s not a vindictive man and that some of Murray’s allegations are beneath his dignity to respond to, yet his lackey of legal brown-nosing sycophants are still trying to remove all mentions and republishing of Murray’s original post, while still failing to respond either to Murray’s request for them to sue him or to even explain how inaccurate his allegations are, apart from their completely untrue argument that Usmanov was pardoned by Gorbachev.

If Usmanov and Schillings want to keep digging this hole, I for one don’t mind shovelling in the dirt on top of them. Usmanov has the money and the lawyers to fight libel cases from here to judgement day. There can be only one reason he doesn’t want to – just like why Gordon Brown doesn’t want to fight an election – because he doesn’t think he can win on a level playing field.

Spread the word.

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Well, actually, you can. He took ten journalists to Moscow to vouch for his own character in the face of allegations made about him. Because flying ten hacks to Moscow and putting them up in a five star hotel is cheaper than a libel case, obviously.

The journalists duly wrote up their trip and what Usmanov had had to say for himself. How many of them, do you think, declared their interest and how the trip had been lavish and all expenses paid?

The answer, as uncovered by Tim Ireland, may or may not surprise you.

UPDATE 5/10: Tim gets assurances in a letter from the Financial Times:

…in accordance with our strict policy on hospitality, the FT refunded the cost of an air fare and insisted on paying the hotel bill ourselves.

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2. Public Service Announcement – Craig Murray, Tim Ireland, Boris Johnson, Bob Piper and Alisher Usmanov…
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Update 2/10: Clive Summerfield’s back as well.

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The original post has served its purpose and only became the information hub by accident – it was only really meant to be a heads-up message – but it was very heartening to see so much support become linked to it. It’s right now however that the list be based somewhere else. Many thanks to everyone who blogged, linked, emailed and slashdotted while the list was here. It was quite the exciting and busy few days.

Anybody who has blogged in support about all this and hasn’t yet made the list (we’re watching Google Blogsearch as well) can let me, Tim Ireland (bloggerheads DOT com AT googlemail DOT com) or Aaron (tyger AT tygerland DOT net) know and we’ll see that you’re added. Ditto for anybody who hasn’t yet blogged and would like to – your views, ideas and support would be extremely welcome.

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(Update: A lot of bloggers on the list are now following up on their original posts – there’s a lot of great stuff put there if you do a little browsing. I’ve noticed one or two people apologising about ‘coming late to the party’. Please, don’t. This isn’t a race, this about sharing views and showing solidarity. If you haven’t blogged this yet and would like to, or have but haven’t let us know, please do.)

Tim Ireland is now well and truly back in the saddle over at Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair. He now has a timeline of events describing everything that has a happened so far. Plenty of juicy detail in there with many a twist and turn.

Also worth a look is EM Daily’s Cyberactivism 101, with 10 tips for effective web activism drawn from lessons learned in the last week.

UPDATE: Tim Ireland again:

Watch for… a cross-spectrum evolution of this campaign once the fact-finding process nears completion; if you’re hesitant because you think you’ll be marching under my banner or Craig Murray’s, think again.

Everyone should have the right to take part in open and honest debate online; this is going to be your best chance to fight for that right, secure it in law or precedent, and finally establish the importance of blogs in general.

Update @ 4.45pm: It’s 301 now.

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