Old media and old law have been learning a salutatory lesson about the power of new media this week as the scandal of the imposition of gagging orders – super-injunctions in the UK turns to farce.
Last week a journalist or anybody else could have got up to two years in jail for writing that the Manchester United football star Ryan Giggs was anything other than a devoted family man. And then MP John Hemming used the cover of Parliamentary privilege to name the footballer in the House of Commons.
But that is scarcely the main point. Before the official institution of press, Parliament and judiciary started colliding with each other more than 75,000 people had tweeted the name Giggs. Indeed the name and his behaviour has been known to anyone with the slightest curiosity for weeks.
The law firms which has taken something like £150,000 of his money to protect his privacy has now tried to take legal action against Twitter in the English courts.
As a California based company Twitter will be well within its rights to tell the lawyers,Schillings which has made something of a speciality out of obtaining super-injunctions for celebrities, to take arunning jump.
Or alternatively they could go to law in California when they would of course have to disclose the name of their client.
Twitter should just quote the First Amendment of the US constitution and get on with the job of revolutionising society through the free flow of information.
And if that results in a few multi-millionaire footballers keen to protect their image rights and sponsorship deals being jeered on the terraces-so be it.
