Tweeter To Be Prosecuted, Twitter Now Censoring? 195
Andy Smith writes "Slashdot has already covered the super-injunctions furore in the UK, with one famous footballer going after an anonymous Twitter user who broke a court order and revealed his extra-marital affair. Now another footballer has asked the attorney general to prosecute a well-known journalist and TV personality, who went against another super-injunction and wrote about this footballer, again on Twitter. Meanwhile, going back to the first footballer, it looks like he's got Twitter running scared, as the site is apparently blocking his name from appearing on the trend list, despite him being one of the most tweeted-about people."
Ryan Giggs is STILL trending (Score:2, Interesting)
The algorithm that twitter use favours novelty tweets over mass tweets. For my location Ryan Giggs is still trending whilst it has stopped elsewhere. There was an explanation of this after people accused twitter of censoring cablegate and wikileaks.
So: TD;DR Twitter are NOT censoring Giggs, its just their algorithm doing what it does.
Re:A suggestion (Score:5, Interesting)
The flaw in your point is it's not proven he has been cheating and tabloid stories are nothing short of propaganda, it's a character assassination and the media is the weapon of choice.
In the UK, how it works is that the story is the story. Whether he has actually been cheating, eaten someone's hamster or whatever is barely relevant. It's a battle of PR clout.
These stories have very common themes: the male is some kind of famous, the girl is some desperate wannabe famous and is represented by Max Clifford [wikipedia.org]. If the male is at the peak of his celebrity, it's a fair bet that he did not pay his protection money, er I mean is not employing Max Clifford and a PR firm is trying to snag him with a grappling hook in order to drag up their "victim" into the spotlight for fame and/or interview fees.
On the other hand, if the male is in danger of dropping off the radar, it's a fair bet that both he and the "victim" are employed by the same publicist and the whole thing is a ruse to get back into the spotlight. Like when "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" (see that wiki link [wikipedia.org]).
(There are of course stories about females but the story is more varied.)
It's all very well to throw up the "free speech" banners, but I'm not convinced it applies when your speech is all about attacking another person for cheap personal gain and the media operates no journalistic controls at all.