Pupils can now go to a website and say what they like about teachers, but, asks Shane Hegarty, who is responsible if a teacher is libelled
If you're a teacher of a sensitive disposition then the arrival of the Irish version of the Rate My Teachers website is unlikely to fill you with glee.
Here is a public forum through which pupils can give their teachers marks out of five in the categories of "easiness", "clarity" and "helpfulness". There is added space for personal comments. There is a separate section through which parents can rate teachers. There is no opportunity for teachers to rate pupils.
Much of it is quite fair, with some teachers given high marks and praise. It is also fairly humorous in parts. But some of it has a youthful nastiness that might be best kept to the school corridors. One pupil claims that a particular teacher is the reason he left school early. Other teachers are accused of getting their jobs by collecting tokens, of being an "absolute joke". Appearances are mocked. About one teacher it is said that you would learn more by "dying from a coma".
Rate My Teachers adds to the internet's reputation as a place where anyone seems to be allowed get away with saying what they like about anyone else. What newspapers cannot say, websites take great pleasure in saying.
On discussion sites, the gossip about high-profile murder cases is open and unconcerned by either legal constraints or, sometimes, the facts. One blog (online diary) recently posted the names of people it said were local IRA members and drug dealers, and, while it has since been stopped, those names can now be found on other sites. Meanwhile, there has been a number of recent cases in the US and Britain involving employees being fired after writing blogs about their jobs, while celebrity gossip sites say things about the stars' private lives that no magazine would dare.
Yet, internet libel cases are still rare. Libel law has the same standing for new media as it does for old, but in Ireland only one criminal case has followed, when, in 1999, a man was jailed for two-and-a-half years after sending e-mails and posting messages on bulletin boards alleging that a teacher was a paedophile. But there have been no civil libel cases as yet.
Legally, you would expect Rate My Teachers to be on uncertain ground. However, the site, which originated in the US, makes vigorous claims of immunity from libel, with a page dedicated to claims that US law protects anonymous comments and that its removal of "inappropriate" remarks cannot be taken as an admission of liability. It quotes brief but intimidating legal argument, throwing in references to such cases as "Zeran v. AOL, 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997). Under 230(c)(2)(A)".
However, David Phelan of Hayes Solicitors in Dublin believes that it could be vulnerable. "Without going into recent conventions, if there are defamatory comments downloaded here about somebody in Ireland, that is a publication in Ireland of defamatory material. They would have a right to sue in Ireland," he says. "It's to be expected that they'd put that sort of notice on the site, but I don't think it would save them."
As it happens, a Canadian court has agreed to hear a case in which a former UN official is suing the US-based Washington Post for libel on the basis that the report could be read in Canada on the internet. The Washington Post's appeal has been backed by 50 major media organisations who fear it could have far-reaching conclusions.
On a more local level, however, the arrival of Rate My Teachers raises concerns of how someone with a grudge against a teacher or neighbour can defame them across the world.
A spokesperson for Rate My Teachers agrees that nothing is foolproof, but that "the rating rules are there to ensure that phrases of that nature don't get in. Were someone to put something up that is offensive, that a particular guy's a paedophile or whatever, there are mechanisms to remove that as soon as notification is made."
There is a page through which complaints can be made. Otherwise, the site has volunteer moderators within each school who are asked to keep on eye on postings, though these can be as young as 13 years old.
According to the spokesperson: "To date in Ireland around 10 per cent of submitted teachers have been rejected by school moderators as they fell outside the community rules and guidelines. These numbers are high relative to the established sites, and it is expected that they will fall significantly as users become clearer about the way the forum operates. Complaints about specific postings are running at between 0.02 and 0.04 per cent."
As it stands, if an internet service provider (ISP) makes immediate efforts to take offensive material off a site once it has been notified, then it may not be held responsible. After that the problem is who to sue if a bulletin board features something nasty about you. Because so many comments are made anonymously, then the person who made them may not be tracked down.
"The difficulty when it comes to the internet is of whether you can identify specifically the person who made the statement," says Phelan, "because some of them are anonymous and while they might be able to be tracked to a computer, can you say that this particular person was the one typing into the computer at that time? That is why ISP liability is quite important, because often the person who wrote the thing isn't traceable."
Besides, by suing you could bring the remarks to a wider audience than it would ever have had on the internet. "If I've been clearly libelled on the news compared to if I've been libelled on a blog, I'm going to have to make the call of will I take legal proceedings here and bring a whole lot of publicity to it when people may not be aware of it, even though it is equally actionable," adds Phelan.
The government has been examining the libel laws for some time now, and the Legal Advisory Group on Defamation, appointed by the Minister for Justice,Equality and Law Reform said in 2003 that "specific provision should be made to deal with internet service providers".
Meanwhile the internet will largely rely on self-policing. For instance, the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, is compiled entirely by the public, yet in most cases of vandalism or libel, other contributors pounce within minutes to remove offending comments.
One teacher says that he has been mentioned by pupils and that the reaction in his staffroom has been mixed.
"Most of us would have laughed it off and said that we wouldn't bother to look at it, but there would be a bit of fear among some of the older teachers who might be unfamiliar with the web. I think they might feel that it's another front for the pupils to fight with them on."
This teacher says that he thinks that colleagues should be accountable, but this website could cause problems.
"You might laugh it off, but if you do read something personal it would be at the back of your mind. A student could use the novelty of it to write something down, but I suppose I could go and write 500 brilliant reports about myself too."