Twitter foils celebrity attempts to hide scandals
Source: Agencies |
May 10, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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TWITTER revelations of alleged attempts by British celebrities to cover up sexual indiscretions show that "super injunctions" to gag the press are unsustainable, lawyers said yesterday.
A Twitter user posted details on Sunday of six instances of what the blogger said were injunctions obtained by television and sports stars to cover up affairs or prevent the publication of revealing photographs.
One of the celebrities named, socialite Jemima Khan, used her own Twitter feed to deny an allegation that she had obtained a super injunction to prevent intimate pictures of her and TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson from being published. "OMG - Rumor that I have a super injunction preventing publication of "intimate" photos of me and Jeremy Clarkson. NOT TRUE!" she tweeted.
Super injunctions prevent the media from reporting not only details of a story but even the existence of the injunction.
"It's rich man's justice," said media lawyer Mark Stephens, a partner at London-based law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, noting that not a single woman was known to have obtained such an injunction.
He estimated that about 200 super injunctions had been issued in the past three to four years. Their cost of more than 100,000 pounds (US$164,000) each puts them out of most people's reach. Stephens, who has represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said incidents like the weekend Twitter leak showed the super injunction was outdated.
Intellectual property and media lawyer Keith Arrowsmith, a partner at Manchester-based law firm Ralli Solicitors, agreed. "The fact that anyone can set up these feeds without anyone checking the identity of the author undermines the credibility of super injunctions. People on Twitter feel as though they can publish anything and it doesn't matter," he said.
Twitter had no immediate comment on the matter. The tweets were still on the site late yesterday, almost 24 hours after they were first published.
A Twitter user posted details on Sunday of six instances of what the blogger said were injunctions obtained by television and sports stars to cover up affairs or prevent the publication of revealing photographs.
One of the celebrities named, socialite Jemima Khan, used her own Twitter feed to deny an allegation that she had obtained a super injunction to prevent intimate pictures of her and TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson from being published. "OMG - Rumor that I have a super injunction preventing publication of "intimate" photos of me and Jeremy Clarkson. NOT TRUE!" she tweeted.
Super injunctions prevent the media from reporting not only details of a story but even the existence of the injunction.
"It's rich man's justice," said media lawyer Mark Stephens, a partner at London-based law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, noting that not a single woman was known to have obtained such an injunction.
He estimated that about 200 super injunctions had been issued in the past three to four years. Their cost of more than 100,000 pounds (US$164,000) each puts them out of most people's reach. Stephens, who has represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said incidents like the weekend Twitter leak showed the super injunction was outdated.
Intellectual property and media lawyer Keith Arrowsmith, a partner at Manchester-based law firm Ralli Solicitors, agreed. "The fact that anyone can set up these feeds without anyone checking the identity of the author undermines the credibility of super injunctions. People on Twitter feel as though they can publish anything and it doesn't matter," he said.
Twitter had no immediate comment on the matter. The tweets were still on the site late yesterday, almost 24 hours after they were first published.
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