UK Police Planning To Arrest Twitter Users For Mentioning The Name Of A Rape Victim

from the free-speech? dept

The UK apparently has a law that protects the identity of the victims of sexual assault and rape. It's understandable why such laws exist. However, once a name gets out, as it has in a recent high profile case involving footballer Ched Evans (sentenced to five years in jail for raping a woman), does it really make sense to arrest Twitter users for mentioning her name? Now, this is no Ryan Giggs-type case, despite the superficial similarities. This does involve the victim of a horrific crime. However, at some point, you have to come to terms with reality, and recognize that even if you don't want the name out there, it's out there. Apparently it was such common knowledge that the name was trending as one of the most popular topics on Twitter. At that point, what good does arresting Twitter users do? It doesn't put the genie back in the bottle, and it's unlikely to make people not share other names. It just enrages people for telling them they can't talk about something they want to talk about.

The laws on these types of issues were designed to prevent the press from broadcasting the name. The problem here is that in the internet age, we've all become the press -- even as most people think of these tools as being more like a typical conversation. And that's where the law breaks down. While it may be legal to arrest folks on Twitter for mentioning this woman's name, it clearly goes beyond the purpose or intent of the law, and doesn't seem to do much good.

Filed Under: ryan giggs, social media, twitter trends, uk

Insanity Rules: UK Judge Says Mass Revealing Of Ryan Giggs Name Means Injunction Is Even More Necessary

from the wtf? dept

It is difficult to comprehend just how out of touch UK judges appear to be on the issue of these speech-blocking injunctions that the rich and famous are taking out in weak attempts to protect their actions from scrutiny. Yesterday, we noted that MP John Hemming had named Ryan Giggs as the person who had taken out an injunction concerning an affair with Imogen Thomas, confirming what pretty much all of the internet already knew. Many have assumed this meant "game over" for the injunction. And, that's an entirely reasonable and logical response.

Except, apparently, to UK judges.

Glyn Moody directs our attention to the latest ruling from the judge concerning that injunction, which is just three paragraphs of stunning inanity, arguing that the widespread knowledge of Gigg's situation is only further evidence of the need for the injunction, to prevent "harassment." Here's the entire ruling:

Mr Justice Tugendhat :

At about 1430 this afternoon Eady refused NGN's application to remove the anonymity he had granted to the claimant on 20 April. He said at para 23 ([2011] EWHC 1326 (QB)) that "It is important always to remember that the modern law of privacy is not concerned solely with secrets: it is also concerned importantly with intrusion". Intrusion in this sense includes harassment.

Very shortly afterwards a name was mentioned by Mr Hemming MP in the House of Commons in the course of a question which was interrupted by the Speaker. On that basis NGN asked me to hear a further application shortly after 5pm for the anonymity of the claimant to be removed. As the public now know, anyone who wanted to find out the name of the claimant could have learnt it many days ago. The reason is that it is has been repeated thousands of times on the internet. NGN now want to join in.

It is obvious that if the purpose of this injunction were to preserve a secret, it would have failed in its purpose. But in so far as its purpose is to prevent intrusion or harassment, it has not failed. The fact that tens of thousands of people have named the claimant on the internet confirms that the claimant and his family need protection from intrusion into their private and family life. The fact that a question has been asked in Parliament seems to me to increase, and not to diminish the strength of his case that he and his family need that protection. The order has not protected the claimant and his family from taunting on the internet. It is still effective to protect them from taunting and other intrusion and harassment in the print media.

Yes, read this again: "The fact that tens of thousands of people have named the claimant on the internet confirms that the claimant and his family need protection from intrusion into their private and family life. The fact that a question has been asked in Parliament seems to me to increase, and not to diminish the strength of his case that he and his family need that protection." There seems to be a ridiculous level of cognitive dissonance from "Mr Justice Tugendhat" who doesn't seem to recognize that the only reason why Giggs has been named so widely is because of the ridiculous injunction. If such an injunction had never been issued, then no such "harassment" would have occurred. And, is it really "harassment" to have someone accurate report something you did?

Filed Under: free speech, injunction, ryan giggs, uk

The End Result Of Superinjunctions: The Count The 'Can't Be Nameds' Game

from the drink! dept

Following on the Giggs Effect, it appears there have been some interesting developments. First, the BBC now feels comfortable naming Ryan Giggs after MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to name Giggs while discussing this whole mess:

"Mr Speaker, with about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all."

Gotta love the understatement of the word "impracticable."

Meanwhile, a different footballer (not Giggs apparently) who has a similar injunction is causing some additional interest after asking the Attorney General (who I'm sure has better things to do) to go after a famous unnamed journalist for a famous unnamed publication who posted an unlinked-to Tweet that mentions the unnamed footballer during an unnamed match. Seriously. Read the story and count what can't be named. Just don't take a drink each time, because you might not make it to the end:

The England footballer, known only by his court codename of TSE, instructed lawyers to ask the judge to pass the case on to the Attorney General’s office. And he agreed.

Due to the extraordinary restrictions surrounding the reporting of cases such as this, The Mail on Sunday cannot identify the journalist involved nor even provide readers with edited versions of his tweets.

It is believed that the messages were written about the player during a recent high-profile football match, which again The Mail on Sunday cannot identify due to court restrictions.

Filed Under: free speech, giggs effect, ryan giggs, superinjunctions, uk

Forget The Streisand Effect, I Think We've Seen The Dawning Of The Giggs Effect

from the ain't-so-super-now dept

Well, well. A supposedly anonymous UK professional footballer has now sued Twitter, along with some Twitter users for supposedly breaking the "superinjunction" he bought in the UK. As you're probably aware by now, there's been a lot of attention paid to these superinjunctions in the UK, which the rich and famous are able to pay large sums of money to courts to get those courts to issue a superinjunction that bars anyone from reporting on certain issues -- quite frequently (but not always) concerning marital infidelity. Of course, on our modern internet, where everyone is potentially "the press" this seems pretty silly. While there have been attempts to expand these superinjunctions to Twitter and Facebook, that seems like an impossible task.

Rather than recognize this simple fact, the footballer in question is suing Twitter. This seems like a total non-starter for a variety of reasons. Thankfully, last year, Congress passed the SPEECH Act, which protects US businesses against anti-free speech rulings in other countries, including in situations of third party liability where the efforts would be protected under Section 230 (the legislative history on this was quite clear). What this means is that Twitter may be the first big test for the SPEECH Act.

Going after individual users is even more stupid. First of all, it would require Twitter giving up identifying info on those who don't provide it otherwise, and Twitter has been known to fight pretty hard against having to do that. I would imagine that its small, but smart, legal team might enjoy this kind of fight.

But, the bigger point, as mentioned in the PaidContent article linked above is:

Perhaps most of all, the action is like pouring petrol on a fire. In response to the filing, thousands more tweets are now pouring out naming the supposed individual all over again.

It's really not that difficult to find reports of who supposedly is the person involved. Various foreign publications, who are not under UK jurisdiction, have pointed out that the Twitter consensus is that the guy who took out the injunction is Ryan Giggs. I have no clue if that's who it actually is, but I will say that he's clearly the consensus pick of users on Twitter.

Of course, in suing Twitter, this "anonymous" football player appears to be more or less confirming the consensus. As Deadspin so aptly put it:

Totally Anonymous Soccer Player Sues Twitter For Saying Ryan Giggs Had An Affair

Which sorta highlights how incredibly pointless this lawsuit is. If Giggs is not the guy who took out the superinjunction, then it makes no sense to sue people who claim it is Giggs. Thus, in suing, he appears to confirm what he's suing to keep quiet. Brilliant.

On top of that, even the UK press, who is required to not mention the guy's name is having fun with this. In a post about the lawsuit, without naming the guy, Dan Sabbagh at The Guardian posted a lovely graph of how many times the guy's name was mentioned in the afternoon after the lawsuit was filed: If the idea was to suppress his name from being mentioned, he seems to have failed badly.

In fact, the UK press is pretty clearly getting fed up with this as well. The Scotland Herald, which notes that it's not subject to the injunction which only applies to England, and not Scotland, has put out the following edition with a picture of Giggs on the cover, with just a narrow black bar across his eyes: In an article about it, The Herald notes:

Today we identify the footballer whose name has been linked to a court superinjunction by thousands of postings on Twitter. Why? Because we believe it is unsustainable that the law can be used to prevent newspapers from publishing information that readers can access on the internet at the click of a mouse…

Because we believe it unfair that the law can not only be used to prevent the publication of information which may be in the public interest but also to prevent any mention of such a court order.

I'm beginning to think we should rename the Streisand Effect to the Giggs Effect. I mean, this has taken it to a new level...

Filed Under: free speech, giggs effect, ryan giggs, superinjunctions, uk
Companies: twitter