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Privacy vs Free Speech
Topic Started: May 21 2011, 11:37 AM (272 Views)
The Brit
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This is a huge debate in Britain right now, due to the current heavy use of things called injunctions and super injunctions. An injunction is something that someone can get from a court to stop the publishing of details about their private life. For example, if Tiger Woods was British he could have taken out an injunction to stop his affairs being revealed. A Super injunction can then also be taken out in court to stop the fact that an injunction has been taken out, so basically Tiger would need a super injunction to stop the press saying "Tiger is stopping us from telling you something". If you break and injunction or super injunction, you can be sent to prison.

There has been an explosiong of these in the UK, as you can imagine with our tabloid press who always want celebrity gossip. We have had huge debates about this, with even Hugh Grant appearing on political programs defending celerities.

Here's a clip from a month ago of HIGNFY on this subject

[utube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMAz85c3blc[/utube]

Yesterday, yet another spanner was thrown into the works. Twitter. You see, after an injunction was taken out by a footballer someone went onto twitter and revealed his name. That footballer (Who despite the fact that anyone on twitter who cares knows who it is I still cannot name on here in case this site gets targeted) has now successful sued twitter who now have a court order against them demanding the names of the people who revealed the footballer. Doing this would actually mean twitter going against their terms of use. Unbelievably, this is the first time Twitter or any social networking site has been sued for content on the site. When you consider thats come from Britain, and not from a dictatorship from the middle east or China or something, that is astonishing.

So here's the ultimate question: Should a persons right to privacy trump the right to free speech?
Edited by The Brit, May 21 2011, 11:50 AM.
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Issa
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I must say, that I am quite interested in YOUR opinions on the matter Brit, being "british" and all.

On the matter of the twitter post, these are my opinions. Twitter should be the target in this, considering that they were not the one who said it, published it or were involved in it in any respect. Also, Twitter is not based in Britain, and as such are not really bound by their laws, and as they're terms of use protect their users, they do not have to give them to anyone.

On the matter of injunctions and super injunctions, I believe that there should be limitations on them, and they should be free to be changed depending on the circumstances. The limitations should include things like yes, covering Tiger Woods's affairs. That should be a private matter between tiger, his wife and his mistresses, but has now blown out of proportion, and at the end of the day people don't want things like that broadcast to the world. The idea of an actress preventing anything to ever be published about themselves is ludicrous.

When I say circumstances, I mean things that the public genuinely need or should know. Lets say Nixon had a super injunction, and the watergate scandal happened. People would not know about it, when they should know
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The Brit
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I'm trying to do a POOHEAD on this one Issa, and let the debate get going before giving my opinion.

And just to clarify, these injunctions are taken out on a case by case basis. So with your Nixon example, he would have had to make the case that the Watergate stuff was his private business. That would be a hard sell to a court.
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jimjams14
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In the case of "should injunctions and super injunctions be allowed" I say "why not?" Private matters, in essence, do not affect the public and though the media may love all the money exposing such matters would bring them, it is not necessary for them to report it.

On the other hand if you yourself let loose the fact that you've gone and got yourself a superinjunction you have no one to blame but yourself. You should not be able to sue a site like twitter and if you didn't tell anyone outside court then perhaps you should be investigating the courts themselves.
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