Twitter Prepared To Name Users 292
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the tattle-tweet dept.
from the tattle-tweet dept.
whoever57 writes "Ryan Gibbs, a UK footballer (soccer player) had obtained a 'superinjunction' that prevented him being named as the person involved in an affair with a minor celebrity. However, he was named by various users on Twitter. Now, in response to legal action initiated by Mr. Giggs in the UK courts against the users, Twitter has stated that it is prepared to identify the users who broke the injunction if it was 'legally required' to do so. Twitter will attempt to notify the users first in order to give them an opportunity to exercise their rights."
This is dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
How am I, Joe Public, supposed to know this super-injuction even exists?
Unless I'm told that mentioning Ryan Giggs is off-limits, how am I to know? I'm not a news organisation, I'm not a journalist, I don't work in the courts, I can't even attend the hearing.
My name is Joe Public and I broke the super-injuction. Lock me up for two years... if you can catch me copper!
Re:Maybe the Twits should apply for a super-injunc (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. Next time keep it in your pants, and you won't have a problem, Ryan.
Re:wrong name (Score:4, Insightful)
If they want the whole country to comply they should tell everyone.
Assuming the injunction is against telling people that "Mr Giggs is fucking a minor celebrity" they would have to tell everyone.
This has made the injunction useless, because now they have told everyone themselves.
It's more of an advanced public secret.
Re:Maybe the Twits should apply for a super-injunc (Score:4, Insightful)
The qualifier is "... if legally required". Hate to break it to you, but there's darn near no corporation on the planet which will outright refuse to do something if they're clearly legally required, especially if compliance is cheap. The ones with balls will refuse to do things they're not legally obligated to do, and a few will even refuse to do things which fall into legal grey areas, but otherwise they'll do it. I this case, Twitter hasn't actually done anything except, maybe, compile that list just to ensure they know they could do it if they were asked properly.
Now, that being said, it stands to reason that Twitter will probably ignore any legal requests from inapplicable jurisdictions. This may or may not include the UK. They may also contest requests where they think they might have a strong legal backing (i.e. privacy laws).
A Quick Guide To British Soccer Players By A Brit (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The top soccer players earn an absolute fortune so can buy themselves any legal representation they want whenever they want to.
2. Soccer fans are too caught up in their gang mentalities to realise that they are being ripped off by everyone around them - they pay huge premiums for annual season tickets but it's the Sky Sports channel that dictates when the games start (which can be a different time each week) so it fits in with their live programming schedules.
3. Those same fans also pay a premium for Sky Sports in order to watch the games.
4. Soccer players do not believe the laws that apply to the rest of UK citizens apply to them. Many are ill-behaved thugs both on and off the football field, and the poor example they set to youngsters has now filtered down to amateur leagues and schools where complaints about abuse against soccer referees is now common over here.
5. Because of the bad reputation set by a minority of troublemaking fans, you cannot, even with a highly priced season ticket, drink any alcohol while watching a live game.
There's a well known saying over here:
"Soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs, whilst rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen."
And that's why I personally follow rugby and despise soccer - it's a better game, I can have a beer while I'm watching it, I can even have a friendly beer or two with opposing fans in the pub afterwards (rather than in soccer where lines of policemen separate fans entering and leaving the stadium) and it's more entertainment for much less money.
Plus it's incredibly rare for a rugby player to make the headlines for bad behaviour or shagging some other woman.