On Wednesday, opinion leader Joakim Lamotte announced that he would stop broadcasting on social media. The reason is stated to be threats to the family. And in an article in Expressen The Greater Gothenburg Police Chief explains that the legal system is not “built for this form of provocative journalism which in several cases leads to threats”.
Let’s stop at that sentence and back up the band. In 1766, Sweden attracted attention by being the first country in the world to adopt a law – Freedom of the Press Ordinance – which regulated the right of everyone to publish thoughts, facts and ideas. If it is to work, the legal system must have large enough muscles to protect those who go against the flow, such as Joakim Lamotte and for that matter the Koran burner Rasmus Paludan.
This is where it gets important to distinguish between different things. A person who crosses the border, for example in the form of libel, must be handled by the judiciary. If someone is “just” provocative and acts in a way that triggers threats against themselves or others, those who threaten must be prosecuted and the rest resolved within the framework of a free debate.
Lamotte is just a media person in the crowd.
There, it is perfectly okay to argue that the other is behaving badly and should quit. And speaking of harassment, there are probably people who would say that Lamotte has exposed them to it and that the effort can hardly be classified as journalism.
Both scenarios assume a robust legal system, where threats are taken seriously both legally and in terms of resources because no one should be threatened away from the public conversation. For Lamotte is just a media person in the crowd.
According to The Swedish Journalists’ Association survey, nearly 30 percent of the workforce has been threatened in the past year. Therefore, even those who will not miss Lamotte in public should realize the importance of rebuilding the legal system to match today’s reality. The alternative is that significantly more than the loudest back out.
Read more articles by Susanne Nyström.
Joakim Lamotte quits as a journalist