Twitter Reveals User Details In UK Libel Case 127
whoever57 writes "In a case that could have implications for the Ryan Giggs affair, Twitter revealed user details in response to a legal action filed in San Mateo county, CA by lawyers representing South Tyneside council. The alleged libel refers to critical comments made via Twitter. It is possible that one of the people making the critical comments is one of the council members."
Re:Could you stop, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
My right to free speech is more important than the right to privacy of a public individual being protected by an abusive court order in a completely different jurisdiction. The fact that this is a legally enforceable order handed down by a branch of government makes it a political issue and thus political speech. If a court order was never issued in the first place people would have stopped caring by now. [wikipedia.org]
More flames? (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF is with editors these days? First, title of article is totally wrong, because this legislation has NOTHING to do with UK, but with US per se (they had to brought it to US court where there you can still sue for libel, but well you can't do superinjuction woodoo). Article also makes sensationalist claims that this decision helps "That Another Football Player" case - well, it doesn't. This is one, concrete person, who is sued for libel. This is not injunction to stop the spread of information - people who will retweet this person message or information won't be liable for any violation of law as long as they will reference this user and his information accordingly.
He's suing the wrong people (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally I think he should be suing his solicitors for not acting in his best interest. The details of almost every "super" injunction have been released, thanks mainly to parliamentary privilege. Once the injunction was made a lot of people wanted to know who it was, so when his name does get released there was massive coverage. They would have known this, but advising your client to put his hand in the air and say mea culpa means you can't charge quite so much.
Quite frankly I couldn't give a damn about who it was and who he slept with, but some people do. The only reason I can see why is that people like Ryan Giggs actively sell themselves to the public - effectively training people to want to know everything about him - and he derives a handsome income from it. He also appears to sell himself as a family man, so having it made public that he had an affair may affect his earnings. Clearly he couldn't make a choice between keeping his dick in his pants and keeping his name clean.
I don't like these injunction has they can be abused - as seen by Trafigura [wikipedia.org] case.
Freedom Of Speech, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom of speech does not include the right to slander or libel people you don't like, and it absolutely does not include the right to do so anonymously. You have the right to free speech - but you also must obey the libel laws, and you must be prepared to take the legal consequences of your free speech.
Re:California company obeys California court order (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it is English people using the Californian court system to sue English people.
Now they have the information they requested from Twitter, they will go back to England and take a similar action against the ISP. Then they will commence libel proceedings against the Twitter account holder; but if the tweets came from a cellphone connection - and twitter has a higher than average proportion of its visits from cellphones, the telco will only be able to say approximately which county the tweet came from, as lots of users share the same public IP address behind a NAT connection. For everyone else, there is the insecure Wifi defence.
Re:California company obeys California court order (Score:4, Insightful)
This is absurd. Tweeting is like saying something on the street in public.
I am not a lawyer, but I know the difference between libel and slander. I'm not sure you do.
Re:Freedom Of Speech, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except telling the truth is neither slander nor libel. This law is consistent in every country I have heard it used in.
Ryan Giggs had an extra-marital affair with Imogen Thomas.
See? That wasn't libel.
Re:Freedom Of Speech, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
This problem also occurred to the U.S Supreme Court in 1964. We now have an exception in defamation law for speech about public officials on matters of public concern. A public figure has to show that the speaker either knew what he was saying was false or spoke with reckless disregard for the truth. It's a very very tough standard to meet.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan [wikipedia.org]
Re:Freedom Of Speech, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom of Speech is the ability to speak without consequence
Wrong. Dead wrong in fact. With every freedom comes the responsibility of using it wisely.
Freedom of Speech merely curtails what steps the state may take to stop you from saying things. It does not mean you can just say anything about anyone without any consequences.