A new blog that purports to be written by a former male prostitute in South Africa has become the focus of a criminal investigation into claims of defamation.
The blog, hosted on an international blogging platform and active since April this year, contains detailed descriptions of the alleged sexual behaviour of prominent South Africans. Among those who allegedly paid the author of the blog for sex are a politician, a rugby star, a stage performer, well-known journalists and a prominent Afrikaans church minister.
Some of the blog entries list a celebrity’s name followed by a notice saying information will be published ”soon” or ”within 72 hours”.
A performer named on the blog said all kinds of claims and allegations have been levelled against him before, and he prefers simply to ignore these. ”My life is an open book,” he said. ”I don’t want anything to do with this. I won’t sink to their level.”
Another person listed on the blog denied its ”untested claims”. Though he told the Mail & Guardian Online he would not have sleepless nights about it, he would consider legal steps if details of the blog became publicly known.
”If I have to react every time something like this happens,” said yet another, ”I would take someone to court every week.”
”It could come from almost anyone,” commented another. ”It could be a right-wing religious group seeking to slur openly gay people.” He added: ”It’s always distressing to have your name associated with something like this, but what can you do? That is the nature of the internet — you have no real legal rights.”
Police
At least one of the people named in the blog has reported its ”slanderous comments” to police, saying ”the only way to put a stop to this is to use every legal option to hold not only the website, but also the perpetrator responsible”.
On Wednesday, Inspector Jeremy Steyn at the Caledon Square police station in Cape Town told the M&G Online that the matter was being investigated and had been referred to the police’s ”computer people”.
However, as the blog is not hosted by a South African internet service provider (ISP), it won’t be easy to establish the identity of its author. It is published on an international ”free listing” platform, said Steyn, adding that the matter might be referred to Interpol.
On the blog, its author describes himself as a former male prostitute who decided to quit the industry after 10 years in which he had about 50 well-known South African clients. He says he decided to speak out about these clients because ”the public is not aware of the double lives these people live”.
”I serviced well-known news editors, SABC [South African Broadcasting Corporation] editors, television presenters, politicians, sportsmen, singers, actors and more … It was rough sex and I will reveal it ALL,” he writes.
Takedown notice
Dominic Cull, a South African telecommunication lawyer with Cape Town firm NicciFerguson, said it might not be easy for those named in the blog to pursue a case of defamation.
”The intelligent way to proceed is to find out where the site is hosted,” he said, ”and then issue a takedown notice.” Such a notice is provided for in many countries’ legislation, including that of California in the United States, under whose legislation this blog falls.
The blogging platform in question not only warns its users against posting libellous content that violates the privacy of others, but also states that it has the right to remove any content at its discretion that is deemed ”harmful or objectionable”.
”Get the stuff removed and monitor it to make sure it doesn’t come back,” was Cull’s advice.
South Africa has not seen a case like this in court before, only coming close at times with, for example, former Sundowns soccer boss Natasha Tsichlas taking action, unsuccessfully, against Kick Off magazine’s online forums after derogatory comments about her were published there.
Cull also pointed out that another website or blog posting a link to the sex blog would be aiding and abetting in defamation.
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille this week attacked anonymous bloggers who can flout standards of free speech applicable to print and electronic media that do not allow the dissemination of defamatory or slanderous information.