The winning Yes side carried a strikingly hesitant case: its most-respected voice conceded, “I don't think it would make a difference tbh”. The argument was less faith in statutory oversight than disgust with mainstream media and a desire for someone to be “held to account for everything they publish”.
That second Yes voice wanted fines and equal-sized rebuttals for outlets that were “economical with the facts”. But the side that prevailed sounded more punitive than persuaded, offering enforcement as an answer to distrust rather than setting out a confident theory of how a legal code would work.
The floor’s highest-rated No arguments were clearer about the danger they saw. One warned that “The state and elites are interested in keeping control”, while another reduced the case to “Fewer, not more laws”: existing defamation law, they argued, already guarded against harm without handing the state control of the press.
A further No voice made the liberty case in its starkest form: “No the press should be free to write what they want”, with defamation dealt with through the courts. The two sides were often talking past each other — Yes about accountability after publication, No about the chilling power of oversight before it — and the chamber’s most respected reasoning came from the losing side.
This was a Yes decision shaped less by confidence in law than by suspicion of the press it would regulate.
5 Opinions
No the press should be free to write what they want. If they write untruths or defame someone, they can be sued. State control = mass propoganda from the state and controlling the narrative. Journalists should be free to investigate and bring the truth into the light
I don't think it would make a difference tbh, most don't report on what is actually going on , by this I mean MSM, there are better independent journalists that expose how rotten our country has become .
YES Without a doubt, journalists, media news outlets etc should be held to account for everything they publish. Most importantly they should be fined if they stray from the facts. Media outlets that post 'their version' of the news should be held to account. Journalists & media organisations that are 'economical' with the facts should be heavily fined & made to publish equal sized rebutals & appolagies (front page lie = front page apologie)
There is more than enough law if they break it; this is an attempt to control the press. Fewer, not more laws.
The state and elites are interested in keeping control. In that case control over narration. Defamation Act 2013 and Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021 are enough guardians of possible harm. This attempt smells censorship and restricting people possibilities of reporting issues. And one more thing, our law system is way too complicated, we should try to simplified it rather than add a new elements.