There’s a bit longer-term history here. European countries, for a long time, had special laws protecting the aristocracy (and members of government, though there wasn’t much of a difference at the time) against criticism. Non-aristocrats were not considered to have reputations of any worth that needed to be recognized by the legal system. Similar laws continue to exist through most of the non-democratic world today, and provide handy ways to harass anyone who criticizes the leadership.

The US rejected special rights for the aristocracy from its founding. As a result – through a long evolutionary process – its notion of a free press included rejection of prior restraint on publishing pretty much anything. The phrase that “the best response to bad speech is more speech” pretty much summarizes the American view.

European law, as it democratized, took the opposite approach: Rather than eliminating the protections, it applied them to all citizens. That’s where Europe’s stricter approaches to privacy come from.

Of course, these are broad generalizations. The US has libel laws (even if it doesn’t have prior restraint) and Europe has press freedoms that, in practice, rarely differ in actual application from American ideas. Individual European countries differ on many of the details. Still, it’s good to understand the broad outline in order to make sense of the arguments.

The interesting thing about this particular proposal is that it attempts to set the clock back (by 100 years or more). Special protections for the famous? Are the famous the new aristocracy?

I think it’s unlikely this proposal will go very far, but Americans may be surprised by the way the discussion develops. European law isn’t nearly as dead set against prior restraint as US law is. It’s more likely to look for a balance between individual privacy and press freedom.

I would expect the first line of objection in Europe to be that this is a discriminatory law, providing extra rights to some that are not available to others. If famous people should have the right to see upcoming stories about themselves – so should everyone. But once you cede that principle, it becomes clear that such a law would destroy news reporting. Every story is about *someone* – usually multiple someone’s – and it’s just impossible to get pre-clearance from everyone involved. Since publication of important information is itself a social good, this would clearly set the balance all wrong.

[Realistically, my guess is that this goes nowhere at all, not even to any kind of public debate. Very few people really care that a grown man managed to embarrass himself. Now, if the story had involved embarrassment of an innocent third party – perhaps a child – it might have garnered some sympathy.]
— Jerry