The 1996 Defamation Act extends the “innocent dissemination” to include distributors and broadcasters. Which would appear to be a reasonable defence for ISPs who have as little control over what people publish on their servers as newsagents have over what people write in the magazines they sell.

If you take the view that ISPs are the online version of newsagents; then that means that if someone wants to sue a newspaper, they should simply sue the newsagent and if they don’t immediately remove the newspaper from sale they have (assuming the defamation is true) committed defamation.
Which is bonkers.

Didn’t the law commission suggest that this needed to be looked at, like ages ago? It doesn’t even need a change in the law; it just needs a case to come to court, with an ISP which is prepared to argue its case and a judge with a good understanding of the internet.

It is a scandalous backdoor way of removing dissenting voices without ever having to disprove the allegations that they have made.