RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

I have spoken to a number of people about the El Paso Times post about a lady, her family and the kind of alleged activities they have taken part in, and the activities they will allegedly take place in forever.

Apparently El Paso are being sued for (I guess) defamation, or since its published libel.

Sunday Times is running a piece on it.

I am not going to go into the details of the allegations, who, what, when, why, because well, from my experience that can backfire on you.

Lets put my experience in context. In the past I was writing about a scandal that was taking place in Dublin.

I was getting information from people directly involved, from journalists, and from other parties. This information was true.

I then got served with cease and desist papers for writing what everyone knew.

In the end of the day, it went very high (to the High Court), and I removed my posts and stopped writing about it.

The other party were playing the time game. They knew they needed to shut the media (and bloggers) up as there was legal battles underway.

They had time and (I would suspect) money on their sides. If I had either, the outcome would have been different.

In the outcome, a legal decision was made, and I for one, agree with it.

In the case of El Paso, they have made a serious allegation on this person’s family. The past actions may be true, if decided in a legal arena. The future actions are not.

El Paso was wrong for making these allegations, and therefore should be told to remove it.

From looking at El Paso Times this morning, the particular post that seems to have sparked the legal proceedings is still published.

If I was involved in El Paso I would remove this particular post, and every comment that is insulting this person.

From the advice I was given in the past the law system sees it like this:

1. you libel someone by publishing something on the Internet.
2. everytime someone goes to that page, you republish it.
3. everytime google return a search result with your URL (containing the libelous content) it is seen as republishing it.
4. after receiving a cease and desist letter, stopping writing about the matter, but leaving the previous posts live, is still publishing. [See 2 and 3 above.]

*IF however* El Paso was able to prove all it is saying, then that is a different matter.

In my case, I knew it was a matter of time until what I wrote was proven. I will not comment here on the matter, but it was a matter of time.

As BackSeatDrivers say, anonymity will not protect you. It did not protect me.
In the end I published who I was and where I was. This may have assisted the people involved in finding my office, and trying to serve papers to me, *in my place of work*. But lets look at it this way, I knew who I was dealing with.

As BackSeat Driver said, “case of an Irish blogger who got a cease and desist letter from a Dublin law firm. He was forced to pull the posts in question, not because he felt he was guilty of libel, but rather that he couldn’t afford to go to court”.

I could not afford to go to court. If I had 5 figure sum for the case, I would have been more than happy to proceed.

I would advise El Paso to contact Digital Rights Ireland, and read their excellent pamphlet on defamation.

My final piece of advice for El Paso: unless you can afford to pay a 5 figure sum, redraw your posts. Not because they are wrong, moreso, because you can’t prove them.

Remove the posts, and go on.

You will loose otherwise.

Damien has some interesting comments.

Comments welcome.

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