Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Prince Charles Allegation

Page: (1)2 3

07:40 / 07.11.03

So what is it that he has supposed to have done/not done that we mere mortals are not allowed to know about?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:13 / 07.11.03

Apparently it's supposed to be all over the interwebnet by now, but I have no idea where to look. Anyway, I preferred the story when it was "someone- we can't say who- has denied doing something- we can't say what". I love it when acres and acres of newsprint are taken up by people deperately trying to write about literally nothing.

Whatever it was, I hope it was unutterably filthy. I also hope I don't find out in too much detail- some images we weren't meant to have in our heads. Ever.

09:10 / 07.11.03

I have a feeling you'll be disappointed, Stoatie.

09:21 / 07.11.03

The only way I can see it ending the Royal family is if it questions the parentage of one of the members.
Or if it reveals they have a secret bestiality cult!
Either way.

11:21 / 07.11.03

Or if it reveals they have a secret bestiality cult!

They tried that with Catherine the Great. Didn't take.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:46 / 07.11.03

Do recall as you discuss this that it is a hot legal issue at the moment. If you make allegations (even report the allegations others may or may not have made) you risk enmeshing yourself and Tom in libel actions and God knows what all else. Caution, please.

11:57 / 07.11.03

Didn't we talk about the legal issues about another issues last year? What are the legal issues for Tom? Does that mean he could also get in trouble with all the images of comics, links to mp3's and direct quotes from newspapers?

12:13 / 07.11.03

d'you know what thread that's in?

nick, i am confused, i thought we can repeat an allegation so long as we make it clear it is an alleged fact as opposed to a proven one?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:34 / 07.11.03

I'm uncertain. I don't know if it makes a huge difference whether you say it's been alleged or whether you say it's true: you make a statement which could damage the reputation of person x in the mind of a right-thinking normal punter, and you may be in trouble.

Since the Mail On Sunday is under an injunction not to report the issue, and since the Guardian was only allowed to print the name of the person concerned after making it clear that they have no intention of repeating the actual allegation, I'd say that it's not a good area for experimentation. Given that Tom doesn't have flesh-eating attack-lawyers, and you presumably don't either, it seems to me better to stay in the extremely clear areas of the law on something like this: the Palace is extremely pissed off and while we make fun of them, they're also extremely rich, which equates with real power in anyone's book. Even if they lost a suit, UK law does not allow you to claim costs for the original case if there's an appeal. In other words, you win, they appeal, you win again, they pay costs for your appeal but not for the original suit, and the result is that your honour is upheld and the bank takes your house.

13:52 / 07.11.03

Basically if you repeat an untrue (or unprovable) allegation that could damage someone's standing in the eyes of right thinking people, hurt them in their trade or profession or {something else I've forgotten at the moment}- EVEN IF YOU SAY THAT IT'S ONLY AN ALLEGATION AND YOU HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHETHER IT'S TRUE OR NOT - it's still libel under UK law and as such the site, you individually and I could be sued.

The situation is probably less clear as the site's server is based in the States and the individuals who posted it might be in america (where the law is different and more in favour of free speech rather than responsible speech) but I'm not sure I'd be prepared to take that risk. So I'd ask you all to try and steer away from this particular issue. Linking to allegations - should you be able to find them - is probably OK, but I'm not sure about that. Subsequently discussing them would almost certainly be NOT ok, though, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing it.

I'm not going to lock the thread, but I'd ask everyone to bear these issues in mind and alert me if someone does let the cat out of the bag so that I can act quickly.

13:57 / 07.11.03

Here's a profoundly useful little guide to libel and defamation that everyone who uses Barbelith should read: How to avoid Libel

15:27 / 07.11.03

Go to Google Groups and search for any likely keywords - I'll leave them to your imagination - and you can see all the wild speculation without causing Barbelith any trouble.

Or just wait til Sunday when all the UK papers are due to give the story blanket coverage.

An Australian news website and national paper are going to run the story in detail imminently and this will effectively enable the UK papers to do the same.

*Deep breath* The United Peoples Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Yay!

15:33 / 07.11.03

My first time on the Barb in ages, and this is what I end up discussing?

Here's a thought: does anyone read Popbitch? This week they wrote a blatant allegation, which may or may not have anything to do with whatever we can't mention. What do you think?

15:53 / 07.11.03

The Popbitch message board is notorious for this type of thing.

The moderators seem to start censoring libelous posts only after receiving direct legal warnings - which is a dodgy policy. The board has been closed for lengthy periods in the recent past because of such troubles.

Also, with this particular issue, the House of Windsor seems to prefer preventing allegations reaching the public domain rather than taking a case to court when they do.

This method was effective when newspapers and news agencies were the only source of such information to the general public. Now that anybody can put whatever they like in the public domain via a message board its proving to be less effective.

18:37 / 07.11.03

this thread is makin me feel all patriotic about the land of the free, home of the brave.

unheimlich manoeuvre

22:35 / 07.11.03

what i want to know is why the offical denial? if they'd of ignored it it would have gone away...

hopefully we will soon see the end of House Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha

23:50 / 07.11.03

Didn't want to take anyone into a legal minefield (too fond of stepping on legal landmines myself) So thought I should just mention that the lateshift thread (in the last page or two) mentions some of the allegation in an idle off handed way. Don't know if its actually libellous or whether its off handed and oblique enough to miss it. Either way what a lot of fuss over a what if , maybe it could have been.

Just thought Tom / Moderators should know.

As for the whole freedom of speach responsible speech, here here...
I wish I could have had all sorts of rumours quashed when I was was at school but no, I had to endure months of ceaseless and relentless bullying by the entire year (and some other people in other years) for something that was not my fault and for which I got punished too.
It affected me for many years and was only put to bed in the past few years when I got all sorts of new perspectives on stuff due to life changes I implemented.

So knowing how rumours can affect people I am sensitive to that, I didn't mean to be a tabloid personal life rubbernecker. I thought it may have been to do with Dianas death/murder Al Fyed connection which I have to say does interest me as an sidebar to the whole Royals/Conspiracy/Blood Line stuff spouted by Mr. Icke etc...

But what the Royals get up to in the personal life is of little consequence or interest and hey if they all want to struip naked and rub jello on themselves I say good on them at least they have found an outlet for their repression (have you seen the look on the Queens face, it's as if every year the internal pressure increase by about 20 lbs/sq inch. WHOAAA, she's gonna blow!!!). But if it spills over into criminal activities then I think we have every right to know and to have allegations investigated by an independent investigation not by people who serve at her pleasure.

whoo, rant over, I now return you to your normal programming...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:25 / 08.11.03

I cannot stress strongly enough how you shouldn't look here and you should not Google for what other countries say either.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:27 / 08.11.03

In its denial, Charles's office filled in some of the holes. Sometimes this shit writes itself, it really does.

15:43 / 08.11.03

tee hee, praying mantis has got patriot cooties!

16:40 / 08.11.03

I just want to clarify this because it is something that seems to crop up a lot here, for example whenever Barbelith has to deal with trolling: The right of free speech is not at odds with responsible speech. Those who claim a right to say absolutely anything they want are either accidentally or deliberately misinterpreting that right. If one wishes to use the right of free speech, one has the obligation to use it responsibly. And newspapers outside the UK can write about this allegation, not because they are irresponsible, but because they are outside, and don't owe anything to, British society.

As for the British media pretending to bite its tongue and being so very responsible, this is not a major constitutional crisis, it's just a bit of hot gossip. Even if a future monarch were to somehow prove themselves unsuitable for the position through a single incident, there are plenty more royalty in line for the job, and only a refusal to abdicate by a discredited and unpopular heir would cause a constitutional problem.

19:07 / 08.11.03

I also want to make it clear that the difference between the american system and the british system isn't obviously a moral one - the American approach has difficulties as does the British. That's not to say that one of them isn't more likely to survive/win in the long-term, of course...

Goodness Gracious Meme

20:49 / 08.11.03

on the popbitch eg:

PB are a very diffferent entity to Barbelith. It's a tiny message board which is only a minor sideline to the main business of the mailout. And the brand is based on messing about with rumour and libel.

(Oh, and they almost certainly can access reasonably toothy lawyers if they need to. Not generously Royal-sized, to be sure, but more so than Tom)

Brigade du jour

04:51 / 09.11.03

I'd just like to point out that tonight I saw at least fifty pages of newspaper articles devoted to this story, and four pages devoted to one hundred being killed in a Uganda massacre.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:14 / 09.11.03

They tried that with Catherine the Great. Didn't take.

Yeah, but it stays in the consciousness like the Richard Gere/hamster thing, though, doesn't it? Shit sticks.

10:58 / 09.11.03

Even if the allegations (whatever they may be) are true, then so what?

i think that depends on which allegation one is thinking of. As far as i can tell, there are kindof two different ones, even if they are interrelated. Flowers' blog, linked above, will enlighten you. (On wch note, Flowers, are you sure that comment on your blog is okay, legally? It doesn't quite follow Tom's line, to put it mildly.)

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:22 / 09.11.03

I'll wait for the writ before getting scared. Luckily the Sunday papers have pretty much let the cats out of the bags with regard to what happened. However, my initial claim does appear to have been an incorrect mix of two seperate incidents, I've added more today.

03:31 / 10.11.03

Weird - I'd always assumed the "alleged" and "say insiders" tags tabloid writers (like me) are trained to use came from the British press. Possibly did, but I had no idea they didn't give a guarantee of safety.

At this point, I imagine there's going to be enough info-leakage on the net that a closed board like this one would be small fry. Besides which, it'd be interesting to see how THAT story played out in the papers.

Stoatie: you're clever. Magna Carta or no.

1truejames: Hey! Cousin James! Florida is poorer for your having moved away.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:09 / 10.11.03

Oh, Stoatie, did you absolutely have to do that?

10:51 / 10.11.03

But, Stoatie,
You missed out 'BY'.

10:58 / 10.11.03

This is an interesting situation.
Having - I thought - made myself clear,
And rather hoping that I wouldn't actually have to delete something
Now I find that I do have to act.
Killing a post isn't my idea of fun
Still, I need to make it clear that libel is still libel and shouldn't happen on the board.

For while I think it highly unlikely that we'd ever get sued
Or taken to task in any particular way, I'd
Rather people were sensible enough to know how to stay out of trouble.

Novel though the method might be and although
Often we do things like this
The particular incident in question is a bit of a big case and
Having considered the matter
I've gone and deleted the post in question
Now if you find that problematic, and cannot understand the need
GROW UP!

11:00 / 10.11.03

I'm not in Britain so I can say what I like.
So what I'm saying is definately, positively DON'T look at this link!

(Note: Link is probably not work-safe)

11:09 / 10.11.03

If that was my post your talking about Tom I posted it before this legal stuff started, apoligies though - please don't send me back to the basement.

11:16 / 10.11.03

Oops well then MY post is bound to go then. Sorry. I thought enough had come out that it really didn't matter anymore. It's on the free to air TV News here (in Australia), the radio, comedians are making jokes about it.

Its not so much a story as a story ABOUT a story and how you can't talk about it. It's more about secrecy than any scandal as such. The actual story itself is silly. I don't believe it and even if it's true, I don't care. It's the behind the scenes stuff that makes is worth following.

13:24 / 10.11.03

Mu Mu, I'm glad you're back and sounding ok, but, fuck's sake, I just opened that and I'm at work. So ... just think before you do stuff, huh?

Page: (1)2 3