11 Aug 11 | minipost, News and features
Index on Censorship news editor Padraig Reidy said today:
“David Cameron must not allow legitimate anger over the recent riots and looting in the UK to be used in an attack on free expression and free information. Too often, channels of communication, whether Twitter, Facebook or BlackBerry Messenger are seen as the culprits in acts of violence and anti-social behaviour, rather than merely the conduit. While police in investigations should be able to investigate relevant communications, there should be no power to pre-emptively monitor or suspend communications for ordinary social media users.”
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11 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Noting how social media, particularly the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, were used to organise this week’s intense riots, David Cameron today told parliament that the government is looking into banning people from using social networking sites if they are thought to be organising criminal activity. He added that home secretary Theresa May will hold meetings with Facebook, Twitter and Research In Motion within weeks to discuss their responsibilities in this area. Cameron also said that broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky News have a responsibility to hand over unused footage of the riots to police, despite the fact that, due to concerns over damaging broadcasters’ editorial independence, attempts to enforce this in the past have been met with resistance.
Index on Censorship news editor Padraig Reidy said today:
“David Cameron must not allow legitimate anger over the recent riots and looting in the UK to be used in an attack on free expression and free information. Too often, channels of communication, whether Twitter, Facebook or BlackBerry Messenger are seen as the culprits in acts of violence and anti-social behaviour, rather than merely the conduit. While police in investigations should be able to investigate relevant communications, there should be no power to pre-emptively monitor or suspend communications for ordinary social media users.”
06 Jun 11 | Uncategorized
Now that the dust is settling after the injunctions affair, here are some things I learned:
1. Ryan Giggs never applied for, nor was he ever granted, a superinjunction.
2. There have been only two new superinjunctions in the past year — one lasted seven days and the other was overturned on appeal.
3. Newspapers which furiously inform their readers that injunctions are against the public interest are remarkably bad at making that case in court (where they have to present actual arguments).
4. The Fred Goodwin injunction never prevented regulators from investigating whether his alleged relationship breached bank rules, nor did it prevent anyone — including newspapers — from complaining to those regulators.
5. You don’t have to rely on the media for explanations of important court judgements; you can normally read them for yourself at a brilliant legal website called www.bailii.org. (Give it a try.)
6. There appear to be 75,000 British Twitter users who are ready, with the right tabloid encouragement, to participate in the “naming and shaming” (or pillorying) of adulterers.
7. When their commercial interest is threatened our tabloid papers forget their traditional enthusiasm for law and order and rail against judges and the legal system like serial lags in Wormwood Scrubs.
8. When it suits them, the tabloids also blithely set aside their usual view that online social networking is an evil invention that causes crime, suicide, binge drinking, obesity, terrorism and cancer.
9. When David Cameron is shouted at by the press he will feebly set up a committee, even when another committee reported on more or less the same thing only a week earlier. (He will also fail to declare an interest, which is that he is a close friend of the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International.)
10. For every time the law is an ass there is an occasion when the British tabloid press is a slavering pack of hyenas. But with the law you have a right of appeal.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. Follow him on Twitter @BrianCathcart
17 May 11 | Uncategorized
Sienna Miller’s decision to settle with News International in her phone hacking case, though not unexpected, certainly changes the picture in the phone hacking scandal. Not only does it set a precedent of a hacking victim accepting Rupert Murdoch’s pay-off in this phase of the affair, but the sum involved, of £100,000 (plus costs), may well prove a benchmark for other settlements. (more…)
