Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Sued By British Soccer Player
norriefc writes "Here in the UK super injunctions are all the rage. These are injunctions that bar the press from even mentioning that the injunctions exist. Recently a Twitter account exposed several of these super injunctions and named several people involved and what their alleged indiscretions were. Now one 'famous' soccer player is trying to sue Twitter and the yet to be named tweeters for invasion of privacy, apparently in ignorance of the Streisand effect. I'm doubtful of an American company paying much attention to UK anti-free-speech laws"
Just search on Twitter for Imogen Thomas, the girl he had his affair with. His name will likely pop up in the first few tweets.
I'm fairly certain that 'allegedly' is unnecessary in this case. i.e it's Ryan Giggs, definitely. :p
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Let's see if this makes the Guinness Book of World Records for "Shortest time a case lasted in court until being thrown out."
Twitter is a social networking site. If I had people talking trash about me on their Facebook wall, it would make no sense at all to sue Facebook because of what that person said.
Assuming CTB is Ryan Giggs (which is a popular belief) then's he's certainly not short of cash. (The Evening Standard has his net worth at £22 million - http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/mailFrameset.do?url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=420790&in_page_id=1779).
I think the only reason it'll be thrown out is that Twitter is not UK based. If it were, then as it exercises some editorial control (i.e. removes spam and illegal comments on request) it's viewed as a publisher and therefore is treated the same as a newspaper and would fall foul of our (super)injuction laws.
I run a big football (soccer for the septics) site/forum (thankfully not connected to Ryan Giggs) and there is (we're told on very good authority) a super-injunction placed by one of the club's owners. Not being mainstream media, we've no legitimate way of finding out the details of the injunction, yet we can be prosecuted if one of our forum members publishes the allegations.
The law in the UK surrounding citizen journalism and internet discussion is an absolute ass. Value your constitutionally protected freedom of speech
Not likely. The SPEECH Act of 2010 was designed to prevent this. Anyone who tries to sue in a US court in a way that is designed to squelch free speech can be subject to damages. Since it would be a civil rights case, the damages could be tripled if I recall correctly.
As I understand it, the site in question is not being sued - they're being bullied into revealing the identies of the Twits who made the posts.
See title, tag the story so no one misses it :D
Is Ryan Giggs suing for privacy or for libel? Basically, is he confirming the story?
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Nothing to do with infections. It's cockney rhyming slang.
septics == septic tanks == yanks
Australians often say 'seppos' too, stands for 'septic (tanks)'.
Not being mainstream media, we've no legitimate way of finding out the details of the injunction, yet we can be prosecuted if one of our forum members publishes the allegations.
I thought that in order to be bound by an injunction, you had to be served it?
As I understand it, every time a superinjunction is issued it gets sent out to a massive number of media organisations telling them that there is an injunction that they can't report on, but not revealing what the injunction is about. That's how everyone in the media knows which injunctions they can't report on.
Nick
Super injunctions are actually fairly new, and on the whole, people don't really understand them.
To the best of my knowledge, the law says that people are entitled to their privacy. If you violate his privacy then you may well be liable for damages caused by that breach. It's up to the court to decide whether they were entitled to privacy and whether you violated it.
Unlike the US, the courts can apply prior restraint. That is, if a publication is going to breach privacy, you can get a court injunction preventing them from doing so. Violating this is contempt of court and so punishable as such. Of course this would implicitly allow a workaround where the media implicitly reveals details by revealing that the celebrity has applied for an injunction, so the injunction has language explicitly preventing that.
If you genuinely aren't aware there's an injunction then it doesn't actually apply to you and you can only be sued for damages after the fact. If you are aware (and it seems pretty certain that you are aware) then revealing this is contempt of court.
Because it could make business in the EU problematic. If a foreign media organisation were to be found in contempt of court (in this case impossible as I doubt Geeknet Inc. has been served with this injunction) then the company directors could become the subject of a European Arrest Warrant.
It's the same reason that libel tourism is so popular; unless you have no intention of entering or doing business in the EU, you need to abide by the rules of our courts.
Nick
The UK doesn't have any anti free speech laws. It has laws against Libel and Slander, and there are some european laws on privacy that the UK courts are inerpreting in a rather broad manner to give rise to these superinjunctions. I suspect Twitter will just tell the UK lawyers to go to a US court first, and it'll stop there.
True, but hardly anyone actually calls it that because it's a silly name for a game where you don't use your feet.
Obvious only to those familiar with Cockney rhyming slang, which is going to be an extreme minority in the US.
Go on, click the link and have a butcher's.
www.wavefront-av.com
The name you are looking for is 'Ryan Giggs'
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
It's vanishingly unlikely a monarch would refuse to give royal assent. The last time it happened was 1707.