In the UK, a Few Tweets Restore Freedom of Speech

Several readers wrote to us about the situation in the UK that saw the Guardian newspaper forbidden by a judge from reporting a question in UK parliament. The press's freedom to do so has been fought for since at least 1688 and fully acknowledged since the 19th century. At issue was a matter of public record — but the country's libel laws meant that the newspaper could not inform the public of what parliament was up to. The question concerned the oil trading company Trafigura, the toxic waste scandal they are involved in, and their generous use of libel lawyers to silence those who would report on the whole thing. After tweeters and bloggers shouted about Trafigura all over the Internet, the company's lawyers agreed to drop the gag request.

Comments

Stephen Fry

[Canazza]

I loved Stephen Fry's quote on this

"Can it be true? Carter-Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we? We know! Yay!!!"

Re:Stephen Fry

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved Stephen Fry's quote on this

"Can it be true? Carter-Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we? We know! Yay!!!"

And so the Brittish people went on living their zombie lives behind their iron curtain, with the feeling that this meaningless victory had changed their lives. In reality they were still being blindfolded, still monitored, still used as mere batteries to the machinery of the Brittish government and financial hierachy.

Re:Stephen Fry

[teh kurisu]

That depends on what you regard as 'the problem'.

The 'super-injunction', as the press are calling it, was the injunction placed on the Guardian's publication of the Minton Report, and the associated gag order that prevented the paper from revealing the existence of the injunction.

The judge didn't directly apply the gag order to the parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farrelly (which didn't exist at the time), and by all accounts the gag order did not cover parliamentary proceedings in any case because of qualified privilege. The only reason it became an issue was because the Guardian received a specific legal threat from law firm Carter-Ruck:

"The threatened publication would place the Guardian in contempt of court ... please confirm by immediate return that the publications threatened will not take place."

As we all know, statements made by lawyers are often merely the legal opinions of said lawyers.

The gag order is the sinister part of the whole thing (not the injunction, which is perfectly reasonable given judicial oversight), but I'd like to point out that these are not uniquely British as the GP seems to be alluding. I'm put in mind of the National Security Letters sent out by arms of the US Government, which placed similar gag orders, but unlike this situation did not have any judicial oversight.

Re:Stephen Fry

[wtfamidoinghere]

Dear Portuguese fellow countryman, our government in no better then others. In fact, I'd say it's probably one of the more corrupt govs in the so-called "Western World". I agree on the Streisand effect, but it simply has no consequences ... I'd go as far as to say it's a void effect ... you get all the shouting and media frenzy, but it's all quickly forgotten and swept under the rug (normally by said media).

And you'd have to agree ... it's a damn selective effect ... and the ones who select the causes normally are the ones that benefit most of it.

Let me just remind you about our great ID Card scheme, about our chipped car tags, about all the security hype...

We have almost no real free media here! Remember the suspicious cancelling of Friday Special News on Channel 4?

One down, an unknown number to go.

[netpixie]

According to the last issue of Private Eye there are quite a few of these super-injunctions currently being enforced (i.e. injunctions that not only stop you from saying something, but stop you from telling anyone that you've been injuncted).

I'd like a few more of them to be twittered, at least so we know that something's being hidden, even if we don't know what it is.

(and I know injuncted isn't the right word, but I don't know what is)

Britain - Libel capital of the work.

[GammaStream]

Hopefully this will motivate the courts and Parliament to do something about the problem of people coming to our country and using our courts to solve their petty grievances due to our ridiculous libel laws. The wikipedia article on libel tourism is particularly good in this regard. A lawyer on Newsnight (available on iplayer) last night listed the example of a Ukrainian business man who was suing a Ukrainian website for libel in the British courts under the justification that there happened to be some people in the UK who can read Ukrainian. This sort of stuff has simply got to stop. To help, sign the petition on the the no.10 website and the website 38 degrees is also running a campaign.

Re:Massive headline FAIL

[Bazzargh]

The Guardian then leaked it to the international press and prominent bloggers -- such as Guido Fawkes. Sure people reported it on Twitter too, especially Stephen Fry who is a sock puppet for the Guardian and the left wing, but it wasn't the tweets that changed anything, it was the International press and the reaction in Parliament.

How's your tin foil hat looking? There was absolutely no need for them to leak anything. The list of questions was already published, the Guardian just asked Carter-Ruck if they could report that and of course C-R said no (since it was covered by the previous injunction). The Guardian reported this on their website (and I'd agree with you here that their intent was to cause outrage); from there it was trivial to figure out what the question was.

Also: international press? If the international press made any difference, then the original injunction would have been entirely withdrawn instead of being adjusted, since the Minton report is available outside the UK. Anyway - be specific. What organs of the press actually reported this before C-R withdrew? And parliament wasn't even sitting until mid-morning. The blaze of publicity had by that point made the restriction moot, it was hardly surprising that C-R caved before it reached m'lud.

Re:Restore? You can't restore what was never there

[swb]

Look, we had a dustup over this in the late 18th century. A few of us got together and decided, among other things, that were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We wanted to be CITIZENS, not SUBJECTS.

The British didn't believe in this. They believed in something else, some lesser form of liberty restricted by their aristocracy and parliament.

It's just refreshing to see a British subject admit to it.