Another “balancing” act opinion from the High Court:
An anti-abuse campaigner has given a High Court undertaking not to publish anything else about a child sex offender on either Facebook or any other social media.
As part of a final settlement to the convicted paedophile’s legal action, Joe McCloskey also pledged on Thursday to immediately remove all references to him from online pages under his control.
The man, who served a jail sentence for a catalogue of abuse, has now been granted permanent anonymity by a judge overseeing the resolution.
Read more on U TV. In this case, the postings generated a number of threatening comments. According to U TV:
Endorsing the resolution, the judge said the case was about drawing a fair and reasonable line between types of comment.
“On the one side that which is unreasonable and disproportionate, and unacceptable, offensive, intimidatory, threatening and having no legitimate aim is unlawful,” he said.
“Material which is merely offensive and harshly critical is likely to fall on the other side of the line which is considered lawful.”
So… if comments had been disabled or disallowed, information/postings naming the man and his past crimes would have stood?