Slashdot Mirror
Judge Issues Gag Order For Twitter
the simurgh writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "A British judge has banned Twitter users from identifying a brain-damaged woman in one of the first attempts to prevent the messaging website from revealing sensitive information. The ruling follows the publication on Twitter on Sunday of a list of celebrities alleged to have tried to cover up sexual indiscretions by obtaining court gag orders. The injunction, dated May 12 and seen by Reuters on Friday, includes Twitter and Facebook in the list of media prohibited from disclosing the information. It was issued in the Court of Protection in the case of a mother who wants to withdraw life support from her brain-damaged daughter. It prevents the identification of the woman and those caring for her."
If ever there was a way to get information out and about, trying to gag Twitter and Facebook is it! And once it's leaked, it's out there forever.
Now that it's banned on twitter, it'll be the number one trending topic.
Patience is a virtue, but haste is my life.
I'd fully support not identifying her. if there was no gag order, well pro-lifers are asshats. All over-broad gag orders must be defied.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Yeah, let's mock those who have just lost a loved one, and expose them to threats of violence from those who think that withdrawing life support is immoral! That'll show 'em for wanting privacy in their time of suffering!
Want to join me at a WBC funeral protest afterwards? You know, just to show those uppity conformists who's boss.
[/sarcasm]
If you really think mocking the grieving for wanting privacy is "fun" then you're a fucking sociopath. Unfortunately, portions of society have decided that trolling is hip, and don't seem to understand that antisocial behavior in "cyberspace" has consequences. A full crackdown with serious fines and maybe even jailtime would do society a load of good. Free speech has never covered harassment. Performing the harassment online with thousands of your buddies doesn't change a thing. Even in cases where it is covered by the first amendment, hurting people just to prove you can makes you absolute filth.
Information like this shouldn't be banned...It isn't going to work. A better approach would be to ignore or scorn those who would post such personal information about something that is purely a painful family issue.
I don't think your definition of "work" and the judge's definition are the same. No one expects that this info won't be made public on the internet. By issuing a gag order, however, the judge provides legal leverage to prosecute or legally disadvantage dickheads who are harassing this family. What we have evidence you got your religious friends across the pond to post this info in defiance of UK law? Guess who's church is now classified as a criminal group collaborating with foreign religious extremists to undermine the lawful authority of the commonwealth?
Mind you, I don't particularly support the legal system to undermining the basic right of free expression, but at the same time if these people are claiming the legal protection of the law for themselves, they have to acknowledge that just because a law is not practically enforceable does not mean they won't be punished for breaking the law or encouraging those beyond its reach to do so. And in the end that may be enough to at least quash some of these religious nutjobs and keep them from harming innocent people in their attempt to force their own religious beliefs on others.
Not everything is a matter of what is or isn't legally enforceable. The injunction makes a statement that disclosing the information is unfair to the people already victimized by the situation and just plain wrong.
That's the judge's opinion and not an absolute truth, but coming from a professional judge representing the community at large who has first-hand information on the subject matter, people are on notice that they're anti-social jerks if they defy the order without some kind of compelling reason. Note: making the point that the technology can't be stopped is not a compelling reason.
I've had to make a decision to remove extraordinary medical treatments from my father. It was not easy, but it was his wish. I discussed it with other members of the family. I only regret that his body lived for 3 more weeks before he died. I wish we could have ended his life quicker, pain free. He wasted away. I could be more humane towards a dying animal than towards my father. That's just sad.
I'd hope that my family would choose similarly if I ever need this decision made about me. I'd want them to have closure and move on as best they could. A quick death would be appreciated when the time came.
I'm certain the judge and the petitioners thought they were doing the best they could by asking to block this information publication. It shows little understanding of the web and internet.
I will not attempt to find out who this was. Sure, I'm curious, but my humanity tells me to leave these people alone.
Religious fanatics - screw you. This is real, not some imaginary friend you can "prey" to for wishes to come true.
A few weeks ago, my Aunt died and I expect my mother to pass away in the next year or so. She is ready and has made her wishes known to me and the other family members. I'm certain that a few will want to do everything they can to prolong her suffering. That is not her wish.
Have this discussion with your family. Having your wishes in writing helps, but they can overrule those at the time. Have the talk before it is too late. Don't leave them guessing. They will wonder for the rest of their lives and it can eat away at them if there's any doubt.
Entirely wrong. This also prevents newspapers and TV from reporting that this issue was on Farcebook or Twitter.
I also gives explicit moral support for the family affected that they are right in not wanting to have this dragged out in the open.
My guess is the judge in question knows exactly what he is doing and what effects it will have. I applaud his decision.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Laws don't prevent anything, just because somebody wrote somewhere 'Thou shalt not kill' has no bearing on your ability to kill.
The use and appropriateness of injunctions doesn't change as a function of technology and the injunction will in fact have an effect; it will deter some people, the
fact that it won't deter 100% is immaterial. The real problem is the exposure created by the injunction. That exposure only exists because it was the first injunction (according the author) that explicitly referenced twitter. The 2nd, 3rd or 100th time there's an injunction explicitly referencing twitter nobody will talk about it and the injunction will have roughly the same effect as it would have 20, 40 or 80 years ago.
It's only useless against those people who are both aware there is something to look for and interested enough to make at least some effort to find out.
It won't help against pro-lifers who are already actively seeking out and going around harassing people. Other laws exist for dealing with these people.
It will help against some of the more opportunist pro-lifers, not prone to go around harassing people unless it is brought to their attention that there is a potential victim living locally.
It will help against the British tabloid Circus, which involves them hyping up (non-)stories and continually repeating and (re)creating "news" until the story is the story. Lack of identity means much less fuel for the hyperbole.
It will help the mother go about her daily life in a relatively normal fashion, without every single person staring and making comments, because 99% of people have better things to do.
Regardless, this is really a non-story. Injunctions against stating names are quite widely supported in the UK, especially when it is Joe Public and even moreso when a moral dilemma rather than to save some embarrassment caused from repugnant behaviour. The related-ish hot issue in the UK is the super-injunctions, which go so far to ban reporting the existence of an injunction, when we generally consider celebs who markets him/herself as wholesome while having affairs as fair game.
Seriously -- The safe harbor provisions of the DMCA provide Twitter, Facebook, Slashdot, and any other user generated content providers protection against their users' blatant disregard for retarded orders such as these.
Effectively, The Facebook or Twitter staff themselves can't release the info on their home pages / blogs / etc, but we, as users, can post whatever the hell we want (esp. in responce to a blog post by a Twitter or Facebook employee's saying that they have been gaged against releasing the information).
It's the 1st amendment because it's the most important one -- they can't inhibit the spread of information if it wants to be free; To do so is unconstitutional.
The point of the order is not to prevent people identifying the family. This is a mistake common to law-abiding people -- thinking that a law or a court order prevents a behaviour. Such a law/order can never do so, however, it gives the people harmed by a breach of the law/order a legal remedy. "a lock only stops an honest man", however if a dishonest one breaks that lock, the crime is more severe than had he merely walked in through an unlocked door. Without the order, bringing attention to this family is merely reprehensible socially inexcusable behaviour, now it is a crime, and the might of the law can be brought to bear on those who ignore the order.
The British Judges issuing these "super-injuctions" have been out of control for some time.
Recently, they've begun issuing so called "hyper-injunctions, where not only are you not allowed to reveal details of the matter, and not only are you forbidden from revealing that you are forbidden from reveal details of a matter, you are further forbidden from talking to any journalist or even your own MP about the matter or the fact that you are unable to reveal details of a matter.
When one of these injunctions was revealed by an MP speaking in parliament, the judges attempted to prevent newspapers from publishing the proceeding of parliament. (Like the spineless curs they are, the British press immediately capitulated). The matter caused quite a todo, but instead of reforming the system, the judges invented hyper-injunctions instead.
Basically, the British judges are out of control. And the judges are the problem here. No sensible judge concerned with the dignity of his office would issue such a ridiculous gag order for twitter users. It's barely one step above ordering people to stop gossiping in pubs. Ordering around citizens from other countries is hardly a major move by comparision.
It would be interesting to figure out why the judges are behaving like this, particularly in England, where judges are renowned for issuing decisive judgements and setting common law precedent. While I know little about it, I'm going to pre-emptively blame whatever pro-business, anti-justice legal philosophy that has been promoted over the last 30 years in law schools, until I see evidence to the contrary.
May the Maths Be with you!
Ending the life of someone who was not dying is "end of life care"? You belong in an Orwell novel.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Several tedious Z-list celebrities have demanded Twitter user @injunctionsuper post details of their tawdry and squalid lives too.
[REDACTED] tweeted: "Rumur that I hv super-injunction preventing publication of 'intimate' photos of me n my bank account. NOT TRUE! Also, tits. FER FUXAKE PLS RT"
The revelation that decent British people can read things on Internet services that aren't even based in the UK has left celebrities and politicians shocked, shocked that people actually have ways of gaining information that aren't filtered through the hamstrung UK print press. "Clearly," said minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey, "we need to protect our valuable pop music and football industries with a Great Firewall of Britain without delay."
"In the modern world of the Internet, the secret or super-injunction may no longer be an effective tool in the administration of justice," said BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman, in an attempt on the world record for fatuity.
"We tried to bugger the Internet last year," said Peter Mandelson, "but did you listen?"
A spokesman for Wikipedia suggested that journalists looking for space-filler stories just fuck off until August as usual.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Don't get mad at me. Get mad at all those libel shopping celebrities and other assorted wealthy folks who have abused Britain's incredibly bad injunction system. You certainly don't see a lot of this behavior elsewhere.
But no, it must be the Internet's fault that Britain's incredibly abused injunction system and the worthless brainless judges that have let it go on is now basically evaporating.
I will not take the blame for this. The UK has a shitty vile unfair system and all of sudden because someone relatively innocent is caught in the net bad law, bad judges and lazy politicians, you think you have any right at all standing on some sort of high horse? This has been coming for a while, and despite repeated commitments to review the current system, the politicians refused to and the judges would know no restraint, and now it's dead. Dead dead dead dead dead. Get over it and get over your holier-than-thou attitude. I didn't kill it. The judges and the celebrities and the wealthy did.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.