Web Sheriff Abuses DMCA In Weak Attempt To Hide Info Under UK High Court Injunction, Fails Miserably

from the hopefully-clients-are-only-paying-for-successful-takedown-requests dept

Last week, Twitter engaged in some dubious behavior on behalf of a few super-secret someones who'd rather the press didn't discuss their sexual activity. Twitter was apparently firing off "letters of warning" to users who had dared break an injunction issued by the UK Supreme Court forbidding anyone in the media from discussing a threesome involving a prominent British celebrity.

There was very little legal force behind the "warning letters" (despite threats from local authorities) and Twitter users were under no obligation to comply with the company's request. The fact that Twitter even bothered to issue these highlights the utter futility of injunctions/super-injunctions of this variety, which are really just a way for British citizens of a certain level of importance to control local media. It doesn't really matter if the UK's highest court upholds a super-injunction if it has no way of enforcing it beyond its super-limited purview.

That doesn't mean the lawyers who have obtained these injunctions on behalf of their clients aren't trying. While doing a bit of research for an unrelated story, I stumbled across Web Sheriff's utter failure to talk Google into delisting URLs by waving this injunction around in a threatening manner.

The copyright owner is (apparently): APPELLANT (COMPLAINANT’S IDENTITY PROTECTED BY COURT OF APPEAL RULING / ORDER)

Whatever these clients are paying Web Sheriff, it's far too much. Web Sheriff has issued 12 requests targeting 447 URLs. And so far, all 447 URLs are still live.

Contained in these takedown notices is an awe-inspiring wall of text -- something that might impress the average DMCA notice recipient. But Google? Not so much. Here's just a very small portion of it:

Then, of course, there are the URLs targeted for delisting, which -- thanks to Web Sheriff's failed injunction-quoting requests -- are all basically injunction spoilers.

Included in the failed notices are some seriously dubious requests, like Web Sheriff demanding an entire post at the Onion's AV Club be taken down because of a single comment and what appears to be Web Sheriff's own attempted Zendesk request for removal of content from Reddit.

Thanks to Web Sheriff's efforts to force the rest of the world to comply with UK law and its ridiculously unenforceable injunctions, more people are now aware of who's being "protected" by the ruling and where to find more details.

Filed Under: celebrity threesome, copyright, dmca, free speech, injunction, super injunction, uk
Companies: google, web sheriff

Why Is Twitter Sending Legal Letters Warning People About Tweeting About The Gagged Topic Of A 'Celebrity Threesome'

from the don't-let-the-sun-on-sunday-reveal-me... dept

For years we've written about the troubling practice in the UK of so-called super injunctions, which bar the press from discussing certain topics. It seems that these super injunctions are most frequently used to stop any discussion in the media of embarrassing situations involving the rich and famous. Of course, social media -- and Twitter in particular -- have become a real challenge to making those super injunctions have any meaning at all.

Apparently, one such super injunction was recently granted to a "celebrity couple" who added a third person to add a "trois" to the "menage." The threesome doesn't want their extracurricular activities to be discussed publicly, and the courts have obliged, with the UK Supreme Court upholding the super injunction, while the UK's the Sun on Sunday tabloid sought to break the media gag order. I'm not exactly a fan of media reporting on the personal activities of what celebrities do in their bedrooms, but it still seems troubling to have courts completely bar the media from discussing the situation at all (they can discuss that the super injunction exists, but not much beyond that).

But, again, there's social media. So it seemed doubly odd that people who had been tweeting about the "celebrity threesome" started receiving emails from the Twitter legal department alerting them that they may wish to be cautious about tweeting such things.

An email from Twitter’s legal team, seen by the Guardian, does not explicitly ask users to delete the tweets but hints that there could be consequences for not doing so.

The email reads: “The complainant requests that the following tweet, allegedly in violation of local law in the UK, be removed immediately from your account. Please confirm whether you will voluntarily comply with the request.”

It also includes a reminder that Twitter’s rules require that users “comply with all local laws regarding their online conduct and acceptable content”.

From that, it actually appears that lawyers for at least someone involved in the threesome reached out to Twitter to complain about specific tweets and argued that the super injunction applied there as well. Of course, the super injunction applies to media, which raises the question of whether or not random Twitter users qualify as "media." At the very least, the Attorney General for England and Wales is similarly warning that even those tweeting the names may be prosecuted:

The attorney-general has warned Twitter and Facebook users may face prosecution if they name the celebrity at the centre of a privacy injuction banning the reporting of his alleged extramarital activities.

Jeremy Wright QC said in a statement that anyone who breached the order, not just newspapers, could have contempt of court proceedings brought against them.

So, perhaps the email from Twitter was just trying to protect its UK userbase from facing such legal actions.

Still, it appears the lawyers trying to silence these details are going after anything online they dislike. Last month they claimed that a random blogger violated the super injunction as well, and have also sought to use Europe's "right to be forgotten" rules to remove search references as well.

Of course, all this activity seems to only be fueling even more interest on social media in leading people to figure out who the suspected celebrities are. Apparently tabloid publications outside of the UK have freely published the details of the story, so it's not like anyone in the UK has to look very hard to find the details, and that was one of the arguments used against allowing the super injunction to continue -- but apparently the Supreme Court was not convinced. Either way, even if Twitter argues it's doing this to protect its users from possible charges (as ridiculous as those might be), there does seem to be something quite troubling when a company like Twitter is basically telling people to "watch what they say" for fear of potential legal consequences.

Filed Under: celebrity threesome, censorship, media, social media, super injunction
Companies: twitter

Wikileaks Reveals Super Injunction Blocking Reporting On Massive Australian Corruption Case Involving Leaders Of Malaysia, Indonesia & Vietnam

from the no-free-press-for-you dept

We've written about the problems of so-called super injunctions in the past (though mainly in the UK). This legal process not only keeps certain details under wraps concerning a lawsuit, but actually forbids the media from reporting on anything related to the case at all. Such a thing would be clear prior restraint and not allowed in the US, but apparently is considered legal in other parts of the world. However, Wikileaks has now revealed what appears to be a super injunction against reporting on a massive corruption case in Australia, involving the leaders of Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, along with people at Australia's central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia:

The super-injunction invokes “national security” grounds to prevent reporting about the case, by anyone, in order to “prevent damage to Australia's international relations”. The court-issued gag order follows the secret 19 June 2014 indictment of seven senior executives from subsidiaries of Australia's central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). The case concerns allegations of multi-million dollar inducements made by agents of the RBA subsidiaries Securency and Note Printing Australia in order to secure contracts for the supply of Australian-style polymer bank notes to the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries.

The suppression order lists 17 individuals, including "any current or former Prime Minister of Malaysia", “Truong Tan San, currently President of Vietnam", "Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (also known as SBY), currently President of Indonesia (since 2004)", "Megawati Sukarnoputri (also known as Mega), a former President of Indonesia (2001–2004) and current leader of the PDI-P political party" and 14 other senior officials and relatives from those countries, who specifically may not be named in connection with the corruption investigation.

The document also specifically bans the publication of the order itself as well as an affidavit affirmed last month by Australia's representative to ASEAN Gillian Bird, who has just been appointed as Australia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. The gag order effectively blacks out the largest high-level corruption case in Australia and the region.

It's the reasoning given that's most troubling:

The purpose of these orders is to prevent damage to Australia's international relations that may be caused by the publication of material that may damage the reputations of specified individuals who are not the subject of charges in these proceedings.

It's difficult to see how that's a legitimate reason to completely hide the entire case from public view, when it appears to cover a variety of important matters of which the public should be aware. If some people may be embarrassed about this, even as they're not subject to the charges in the proceedings, then they should easily be able to explain that fact. There are lots of lawsuits that will embarrass some people (even those not directly subject to the case). But we don't hide them when they deal with everyone else. The decision to do it here really smacks of the "high court" / "low court" distinction between the treatment those in power receive vs. what those not in power do.

Filed Under: australia, corruption, free speech, gag order, indonesia, journalism, malaysia, super injunction, vietnam
Companies: rba, reserve bank australia