The debate about privacy law... what privacy law?

Four bloggers sat in front of a committee of MPs, peers and bishops to debate privacy legislation. There was tension in the air: George Eustice MP suggested that in the media hierarchy, bloggers are lowest in the "pecking order of credibility", below broadcasters and newspapers. "But not as low as politicians," muttered Paul Staines, who as Guido Fawkes in his blog, gets up to 100,000 readers on a good day.

Lord Gold characterised the bloggers as wanting to be seen as "going out on their white chargers to defend the public good", but pointed out that nobody had elected them. (Nor he: a lawyer, he was made a peer earlier this year.)

The bloggers saw themselves as victims of anomalies in the law: at risk of being bankrupted if they were successfully sued but unable to know what they shouldn't be publishing. As David Allen Green, a legal blogger, explained, they can find themselves breaking a super-injunction because they aren't given notice of the terms, unlike newspapers - which is "not a sustainable situation".

There were some basic misunderstandings between the committee and their witnesses. Paul Staines innocently said he was "just not aware of a right to privacy" under the law. Later, he complained that "privacy is just a euphemism for censorship". The committee referred him to the Human Rights Act, but David Allen Green backed Staines on the absence of a privacy law, saying that there is only "a tort of the misuse of private information".

The bloggers were equally unimpressed by "judges making law from the bench" as with the prospect of changes that would result in something more formal. Richard Wilson, author of The Sceptic's Guide to Life, saw a blogger's defiance of a judge's ruling as part of an honourable tradition of civil disobedience when the law is wrong - citing mass trespasses which established the right to roam.

Jamie East, founder of the celebrity gossip site Holy Moly, said he'd had 30 to 40 threats as a result of what he'd published: although he'd never been sued, he had agreed to make donations to charity and not to discuss certain subjects again.

He was clearly averse to having anything to do with lawyers if he could help it: "As soon as you put 'without prejudice' at the top of a letter, you're heading down a slippery slope towards remortgaging your house."

By the end of the session, a more constructive atmosphere prevailed: Lord Gold had accepted that social media has "opened a new frontier"; Richard Wilson had suggested a small claims court for libel to help sort out the "regulatory mess"; and even Jamie East had admitted that dealing with the law at the moment is "a bit like herding cats".

Being bloggers, by today some had already posted reports of the session. Richard Wilson was guardedly positive: "I've no idea what the Committee will have made of our testimony. It is, at least, encouraging that these issues are starting to be debated properly."

Paul Staines posted the YouTube video of the hearing on his site. Among the 79 comments - which one might expect to be sympathetic - was the predictable "some of the committee would not look out of place in the 1890s." But Staines was also criticised cuttingly:

"Privacy is just a euphemism for censorship... Yeah brother power to people yeah. 6th former answer to a question. I suggest you all watch Guidos performance in full... totally embarrassing, most of the questioners all looked up to heaven, while trying not to titter every time Guido opened his mouth."

It's a rough old world, blogging.

PS. If you fancy being on a committee like this, you could respond to an ad that popped up in Guido Fawkes' blog above the video of the session: