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Tramlink Censorship
On Thu, 8 Dec 2005 02:04:37 -0000, "John Rowland"
wrote: After more than six years of supporting Tramlink, Stephen Parascandolo has been forced by legal threats to remove the Latest News section from the Unofficial Croydon Tramlink website. http://www.tramlink.co.uk/news/index.shtml This is not an issue which causes me particular concern [yet] other than feeling that the better course of action for the benefit of all webmasters who produce sites to the same standard of the Unofficial Croydon Tramlink, would have been at the very minimum for legal advice to have been sought. Clearly this would have cost money which the webmaster doesn't have, but perhaps an appeal for donations to a "fighting fund" might have been a route to follow. If all members of the site's discussion group made a small contribution, about £35,000 could have been raised. However this was not something that the webmaster wish do and therefore the News Section of his site was abolished with all archived material removed. IMHO it was the archived material that was at the root of the problem since it provided a searchable database of incidents on the Croydon Tramlink website and the actions that were taken to restore the service or vehicle[s] back to normal operational mode. Where there were perceived shortcomings in the actions taken, and the associated time scales, then editorial comment made was deemed to be "libellous rubbish" and considered by the suppliers of services or equipment to adversely affect their reputation and possible orders or contracts in the future. I think I can see were all of this would have lead which for someone running a "hobbyist" site, it was not worth the risk of having substantial damages being awarded against him. Whether there are any parallels that can be drawn from this with other similar advocacy sites is uncertain, although I can say I have received complainants from an organisation about "editorial comment" made on my site [www.tfwl.org.uk], so I think this is a trend that is likely to escalate in the future. Indeed we are all 'guilty' by following any policy of objecting to anything in print which we feel is misinformation on our favourite mode of transport. Whether we all shut up and say nothing is a matter of further discussion but it is a warning shot that anything said in print must be the 'whole truth and nothing but the truth'. Pity the newspapers don't adopt the same levels of responsibility. David Bradley |
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