Sir, – I was disappointed reading Noel Whelan’s piece (Opinion, January 28th) on the handling of Seán Sherlock’s legislation that he did not address the main points raised by the thousands of people who are trying to participate online in a non-democratic process. I can see two main points.
First, the legislation will not be debated in the Dáil. Second, the legislation would allow a court to ask for a website to be blocked just for having links (please note: linking, not hosting) to copyrighted material.
Trying to oppose this online is far from absurd; it is a duty. Arguing that the points, right or wrong, should not be raised is censorship, as surely Twitter is the modern equivalent to shouting at the mart: not more nor less representative, but one that may or may not be ignored. – Yours, etc,