free speech is dying!, page-19

Really glad to find this discussion over here.

There has been a lot of discussion over several days on this topic on the asx General site, under the heading
'its dog eat dog blog-world out there'.

There was a similar article to the one posted here, in The Saturday Age written by Michael West on the 8th September, and saying similar things to the Andrew Bolt article, so the newspapers are picking up on it, which is good.

Totally agree HC does/should have immunity. It is an absolute disgrace they recieve approx 2 legal threats a week. But I am not sure we have such a law in Australia like they do in the USA which is a great pity. I agree freedom of speech in Australia does very much seemed to have been tightened 'of late'.

I have contacted one of the people who is being sued (not sure what is happening with the second person) and they are in a terrible state regarding the whole situation and especially the financial aspect of trying to get legal representation but they are needing to come up with a huge amount of $$$$ just to get represented, and don't know where the money is going to come from.

It does appear they are being made a 'scapegoat' and that this is to quell any negative discussion regarding boards.
It is very threatening and it is spreading too. A day or so ago another thread was closed, another O&G site due to the directors not liking what was being said about them.
You can't blame HC. If they are being threatened that is what they have to do, but there does seem to be a shift occurring as to how much we can and cannot say about any board members, and it is relating to this area of 'free speech'. It is rather unsettling even frightening to see Australia becoming more controlling in this area, which is then extending through to individuals and in this case, to the directors. We are after all a democracy are we not?

I am waiting to hear back hopefully on Monday, with details to set up a PO Box and/or an account for these two HC members involved, so that at least, we can really get behind them with donations which would show our HC solidarity and also help remove some of the financial stress they are under. Imagine if it was you or I. It would be terrifying really. We all at times can have a winge or a gripe or even go a bit further, but to be sued and threatened like these ppl are is dreadful. I am really hoping folk on HC will dig in deep to help them out. What else can we do??? Nothing.
Talking won't help them but money will.