Freedom of Speech in the Blogshpere

Sheffield Wednesday has finally obtained a court order forcing the fan site Owlstalk’s Owner Neil Hargreaves to reveal the e-mail addresses of three fans who made comments on the site.

The ‘club’ had gone after 13 fans all told feeling sensitive after questions were raised on the site concerning greed, selfishness, trustworthiness and honesty there.

This might be interpreted by some, as a case of the pot calling the kettle black, given some of comments about certain groups of fans made by Sheffield Wednesday’s Chairman that found their way on to You Tube.

Most of the cases were ‘thrown out of court’ and the club has had to cough up £9,000 in costs.

Not having seen the comments it is difficult to form an opinion as to weather they were over the top, or not - and if so how, but the whole matter has echoes of the ‘silence of the blogs’ incident involving Alisher Usmanov and Schillings, who appear to have gone after sites that commented on allegations published by Craig Murray, but not to the best of my knowledge sued the author.

Still it would be good to have a reliable indication as to what is and is not acceptable to post and comment.

People say some pretty heated stuff about politicians for instance. Especially when what the politicians say, or promise, turns out to have a negative correlation with reality.

Then terms like pork pie salesperson may be bandied about and comments often touch upon truthfulness and honesty - at least.