NAMES CAN BE misleading. The Tree of Cracow never knew Poland. It was a hoary chestnut in the Palais-Royal Garden in 18th-century Paris, when France was subjected to two intertwined tyrannies: the royal rule of the Bourbons and the clerical rule of the Catholic Church. Censorship was the order of the day, book-burning not uncommon, and the wrong word could land you in the Bastille prison. Still, Parisians’ thirst for news was unquenchable, and the Tree of Cracow became the locus of a flourishing news-exchange. As the historian Robert Darnton writes, news-mongers gathered around it every day to exchange the latest tidings by word of mouth. Even ambassadors sent their agents.
Legend had it that this particular chestnut made a cracking sound whenever someone uttered a falsehood nearby – to the point that “craque” became slang for false news. Sri Lanka’s new Online Safety Act, another misleadingly named entity, could do with a similar feature. The act mandates the appointment of an Online Safety Commission by the president with the concurrence of the Constitutional Council, and tasks this body with judging the veracity or falsity of any contentious online statement. A “false” statement is defined as one “known or believed by its maker to be incorrect or untrue.” How the commission’s five members are expected to divine this is unclear. Do they turn to polygraphs? Or mind reading?
This nebulousness may be intentional, for it opens up a vast space for official excesses and abuses. Interpretations can fill the vacuum created by paucity of facts, and the presumption of guilt can replace the presumption of innocence. This is especially so because quite a few of the “crimes” identified by the act are of a sacral nature.
Take, for instance, Section 15: “Disturbing a religious assembly by a false statement” can result in a prison sentence of up to 3 years, a fine of up to LKR 300,000 (roughly USD 1000), or both. Or Section 16: “Deliberate and malicious communication of false statement to outrage religious feelings” carries the same punishments.