Blog bullies propel state of the internet into the spotlight

The decision by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, to speak out against cyber-bullying last week - urging websites such as YouTube not to carry demeaning videos of pupils and teachers - goes to a hot issue of concern for all new media: that of internet-content regulation.

No sooner had he spoken than the issue arose again in another form. The online death threats and abuse directed against Kathy Sierra, a prominent Californian blogger and web developer, led Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, to call for more civilised blogging - perhaps encouraged by a form of voluntary code of conduct. The branding system proposed - designed to enable users quickly to assess the credibility of the site they are looking at - has echoes of the Press Complaints Commission chairman Sir Christopher Meyer's suggestion that there is a commercial advantage for newspapers and magazines in making clear that information on their sites is subject to professional standards, and so more reliable than that elsewhere.

Sierra's case ignited the "blogosphere" and seems to have been particularly noxious. One post featured a picture of her next to a noose. Yet, generally speaking, it seems that most bloggers are taken far too seriously - particularly by themselves. We are told that there are 70 million of them, but not the extent of the appetite for what they have to say. There are notable and celebrated exceptions, but just because words are out there does not necessarily mean that anyone other than the blogger's mother and people Googling their own name is going to read them. Partly due to this, the case for content regulation beyond the general law for citizen journalists has not been made out.

There has, in any case, always been an overarching philosophical objection to any form of imposed rules about how people may communicate with one another - whether it is online or in print. This has now been joined by a long list of practical difficulties about how such a set of rules could be enforced in a democracy - particularly one such as the UK, which has freedom of expression enshrined in human rights legislation.

But bloggers are a sideshow. Commercial media will continue to drive the news agenda, not least because of their superiority of resources and talent. And, for them, imposed content regulations would be anti-competitive, counter-productive and, given the global market for information and its provision, impossible to police effectively.

Given that this is the case, what is so striking about the current debate is how long-held positions on the role of the law have quietly evaporated. For years, the argument on press standards was polarised between fierce advocates of a privacy law on the one hand, and those crying "press freedom" on the other. Complicating factors were few - you either believed that there should be imposed legal restrictions concerning what type of information could be published, or you didn't. But who now argues for a privacy law aimed at the media, or a statutory press council? The realities of the digital age have seen it off.

We should recognise the passing of this old debate which dominated the great public rows about the freedom and responsibility of the press in the 1980s and 1990s. Only last month, at the Westminster Media Forum, the British Government minister, Shaun Woodward, said that the law was a "slow and ineffective" instrument for dealing with such a fast-moving industry. In February, a European Union study concluded that "traditional regulations [were] finding it difficult to keep up with the speed of technological, economical and social changes, and the problem of decentralised information. Traditional regulatory approaches also may suffer from enforcement problems." Across Europe, academics, regulators, officials and legislators are coming to the same conclusion.

The fly in the ointment for some is the current restrictive approach taken by UK judges on freedom of expression, which denies British people the right to receive true information which may be available elsewhere. There is no denying that this is currently a challenge for those in the news media and for the PCC. But the question is: how long will it be before the digital revolution makes judgements such as these, which do not take account of the new reality, look irrelevant or out of touch?

The case for a form of non-statutory independent regulation for print and digital media, which protects freedom of expression, promotes good journalistic practice and provides redress for individuals when things go wrong is stronger than ever. The development of such a system through the Press Complaints Commission is perhaps one reason why the online journalism of UK newspapers and magazines - with its global audience of tens of millions of people - has not provoked the ethical questions raised by Alan Johnson and Jimmy Wales about You Tube and blogging.

Because the PCC - while independent - involves the industry in its decision making, no one considers circumventing its advice and rulings. The same cannot be said for imposed restrictions and injunctions, which are a clumsy and sometimes counterproductive alternative. In the online environment, the Commission's non-statutory framework enables it to act quickly to resolve disputes in hours or days when things do go wrong - particularly important considering one of the main concerns people have concerns the speed of dissemination of inaccurate or intrusive information.

This is not a complete answer to the challenges thrown up by the revolution in information provision. But, while the rows over social-networking sites and blogging continue to simmer, it is at least worth highlighting that the British press has taken the lead in voluntarily subjecting its online written and audio-visual journalism to independently-policed professional standards.

Tim Toulmin is director of the Press Complaints Commission