As my shockingly biased thread title stated, a very famous footballer, playing for a very famous English club, is suing Twitter and its users for revealing the details of a super-injunction and a certain Mrs Imogen Thomas (if you don't know who that is, shes a nobody). I'm going to chose my words carefully as Dennis Publishing is a UK company. If you want to know the details, search for "super-injunction" on Twitter. I don't know how many times the world needs to learn this lesson. You can not prevent the free flow of information on the internet. No one can. By attempting to suppress this information, the footballer in question has ignited a firestorm and his name will spread across the internet in a way that would never have happened.
This site's servers are in the U.S., aren't they? It's Ryan Giggs Gyan Riggs [REDACTED] In any case, the decisions announced today by Justice Judge (what a great name) means the uneasy truce continues. Open warfare will probably resume shortly, though - and that case against Twitter is going nowhere because unlike the contra mundem (yeah, like that's legally enforceable) injunction Eady pulled out of his arse a few weeks back this one only applies in the UK. If anyone else is interested in how foreign media can ruin British injunctions, read up on the Spycatcher case.
Yes, its a US company. Makes it near impossible to sue. I wouldn't name him, because it makes you in breach and this is a UK company, making them liable. Trust me, I'd love to name and shame
<Off-Topic> Not naming names of course, but lots of people are talking about Ryan Giggs on Twitter. </Off-Topic> Apologies for that off-topic-ness there. Back to the topic at hand: yep, it's pretty silly. Whoever this football player is - lets call him 'Bryan Higgs' - he's only drawing attention to himself and making himself look like a coward IMO. I mean, if someone had an affair, it's not exactly standard to take out an injuction and then sue anyone who exposes you. But 'Bryan Higgs' is doing just this, and in the process just seems to be coming off as cowardly, IMO.
I thought the footballer in question had the initials CTB? At least that's what is being reported across the news media.
Nah, it's just a general tag given to... Bryan Higgs. CTB doesn't correspond to the actual footballer's name as it'd give away his identity. I mean, if the initials RJG were used, people would be able to figure out the person's identity easily enough.
Oui, but we wouldn't want to land the good folks at Dennis in any hot (or even mildly warm) water, eh? On topic - what a weak little tool.
Reading about the whole thing, i can say only one thing - these injuctions are simply stupid and should be removed from your law system ASAP. It is ok to have injuctions, it is also ok to have anonymous injuctions - when all parties are notified. But in this case, when there is a anonymous injuction protecting an anonymous person from publishing information about him, then it is simply impossible to enforce, and this kind of injuction makes no sense. If you don't know about the injuction, then you cannot be held liable for breaking it. And what is a point of injuction, when you will only know that you breaked it after you published the info ? Info is already out in public. Also, anyone who would be prosecuted for breaking this kind of injuction would get the whole thing stopped at European court, if UK courts would be stupid enough to punish him. Plus he would get a nice financial compensation which would be paid by taxpayers of course. Seriously, i seen stupid laws, but anonymous injuction against world takes the top spot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect Why would a court even care about something that is not a criminal case?
Suddenly, Higgs Bozo-n comes to mind. How come in this day and age, lots of people still can't wrap their minds around the fact that X country's laws only apply in X?
Okay, how does that apply to the internet? If an person hiding behind a pseudonym writes something on a website, which country's laws apply? If I (UK citizen) write on a US-based website, am I covered by UK law, US law, both, neither? Does that change if I'm in France at the time? If I'm defaming a Canadian, where does he go for justice?
Yeah, Ryan Giggs is an idiot. Now that a US company is being sued (even though they're almost definitely protected under US freedom of speech and reporting ), loads of US media sources including Forbes have openly reported that it's Ryan Giggs who had the affair. And now, even places like Wikipedia are confirming it (since Forbes is counted as a reputable source for a citation). So rather predictably, Giggs' attempted lawsuit has blown up in his face (thankfully!)
the US government is currently failing to get information about the wikileaks tweets - so what makes mr welshman who plays for manachester united think he`s gonna get anywhere?
Legally it is a moot point. Injunctions only apply to public statements, not informal gossip in the pub, which, as has already been established through legal precedent, Internet communications on forums or social networking sites fall under. If Giggsy can sue Twitter, then he could sue the landlord of a pub for what one customer says to others. I'm surprised that it is even considered. Thus case will fizzle out soon enough. Meanwhile it does demonstrate something that isn't news: footballers are not the brightest bulbs in the Blackpool illuminations that is humanity.
Just heard on the radio that Twitter has been asked to hand over any details of people mentioning this....... will try to find an article to back it up...... EDIT: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13482403
And this is the point where it ends. Twitter will show them a nice legal letter, which in short equals to the middle finger gesture.
The legal team isn't interested in us, or in Twitter users in general, fortunately. They're interested in the @injunctionsuper Twitter account, which exclusively published allegations alleged to be the subject of superinjunctions. They're trying to force Twitter to reveal the details of 'Billy Jones', the user of that account, because they believe it to be a member of the British Press who published the rumours on Twitter so that they could plead public knowledge and publish the rumours in the paper immediately thereafter. That would be a violation of the superinjunction, obviously.
