I am copying a post I made on another thread that addresses my feelings about this subject:
I am biased in favour of justice, fairness and privacy.
People generally despised the tapping of the mobile phone of the girl who disappeared. This was because doing so was offensive to justice (interfering with the course of a case) , fairness (what are the limits of a free press) and privacy (what rights do we have to not be interfered with by the state or other citizens.
There is a right to free speech and this probably should apply to a book or press article more than it does in the UK currently. And people should certainly be free to hold an opinion.
But this has to be limited in many ways. For instance Mary Bell orders for various serious criminals at risk in the community, national security, safety, libel and so on.
Se have a new situation caused by the internet that approaches close to the basis for these limits on free speech. Gossip when limited to the pub was tolerable, but when has an organised rabble egging people on to speech and a ton on a public media it becomes a probable moral and possible legal question.
The law recognises that people may have an opinion but they may not for instance express that publicly by demonstrating outside an opponent's house or sending them direct communications. I would argue that similar actions by people on organised sites in public, accessible to all is as objectionable as demonstrating outside someone's house or telephoning or emailing them. I can see an argument to apply the same restrictions on internet behaviour as we do on behaviour in the real world and to make the targeting of individuals on message boards as a case of harassment. The simple answer is that such discussions should be private to the participants and not open to the public, nor gathered by Google bots.
At present we allow a group of angry frustrated and deluded people to meet in private to cast aspersions on individuals. We do not let these people demonstrate in the residential area where the target lives. I would have little objection if there were the same limits put on harassment by social media that we place on harassment in the real world.
Sites that allow groups to post harassment would be required to be unavailable to non-members and not searchable. Merely factual posting would be a defence but speculation and accusation would be unlawful.
As more and more cases like attacks on rape victims (the recent footballer case), Jon Venables, Cliff Richard, Sharon Shoesmith, and a whole variety of other victims.
The press would still be free, factual discussion would still be free, but joint behaviour amounting to harassment would not be protected.
