Today I start work as a Clerical Assistant, which while not terribly glamorous, is something of a step up from dishing out popcorn at a cinema. Working at the cinema was a useful stop-gap, but the varying shifts, late nights, anti-social working habits, hours spent on your feet and minimum wage pay were all downsides that even free cinema tickets and half-price refreshments couldn’t quite make up for. Most of the staff were nice people, but I’m very glad to be moving on to a job with regular working hours, a desk to sit at, and work that should be rather more intellectually stimulating.
I deliberately avoid mentioning the name of the cinema, because they are rather touchy about employees, or former employees, talking about the company online. One guy I knew was suspended for making some derogatory comments on someone’s Facebook wall. That might sound a bit crazy, but it shows the perception gap between how people’s use of the Internet and the legal implications of what they write online.
Most people, and I’m as guilty of this as anyone else, often treat what they write on blogs, Internet forums, Facebook and so on, like casual conversation, throwing out careless words without much thought for the consequences. People treat it like a chat down the pub. If you say something slanderous (slander being spoken, as opposed to libel, which is written), no legal action can be taken.
But although most internet chat is indeed inconsequential, once you’ve posted it to a website, it’s then out there for the world to see – quite literally, what you write is available in principle to millions of people. From a legal perspective, you have published those opinions, and are legally liable for them if they prove to be libellous, for example.
I think the gap needs to be closed on both sides. On the one hand, the law needs to catch up with the fact that the Internet is a vastly different medium to the printed word and people use it very differently. On the other hand, people need to catch up with the fact that what they write on the Internet doesn’t exist in a vacuum and doesn’t just vanish: we need to be aware that what we write can have consequences, and take responsibility for it.