By Jacqui Cheng
If you're not based in the UK, you may have no idea what a "super-injunction" is. But if you're a Brit, they're apparently an occasional part of daily life—especially as of late. And now, an anonymous Twitter user is being sued for breaking a super-injunction issued by a British judge, but over who or what? Nobody knows for sure, and it's because of the super-injunction.
Talk of social media injunctions in the UK began earlier this month when a British judge attempted to protect the identity of a brain-damaged woman by ordering her name to stay off of Twitter and Facebook. The two sites were actually included in a list of "media" forbidden from publishing the information, according to the order seen by Reuters, despite the fact that both companies are US-based and the content they host is entirely user-generated.
But that's just a "regular" type of injunction—there's also a concept called a super-injunction. While an injunction simply bars a specific aspect of the story from being discussed (in the previous example, a name), a super-injunction is "super" because it bars any element of the story from being discussed at all. So, if a celebrity has an affair with her poolboy's dog and somehow manages to get a super-injunction from a judge, the mere discussion of any of it—the celebrity herself, the poolboy's clothing that day, the breed of the dog, whether the celebrity had a relationship with the poolboy before moving onto the dog, etc.—is not allowed.
In fact, celebrity cover-ups appear to be the primary reason for super-injunctions lately. Earlier this month, an anonymous Twitter user listed a number of actors, TV personalities, athletes, and other celebrities who allegedly obtained super-injunctions in order to keep details about their lives secret. According to the Financial Times, the High Court has handed out "at least 30" of these super-injunctions to the rich and famous, though prime minister David Cameron is reportedly uneasy about the practice.
If you're not based in the UK, you may have no idea what a "super-injunction" is. But if you're a Brit, they're apparently an occasional part of daily life—especially as of late. And now, an anonymous Twitter user is being sued for breaking a super-injunction issued by a British judge, but over who or what? Nobody knows for sure, and it's because of the super-injunction.
Talk of social media injunctions in the UK began earlier this month when a British judge attempted to protect the identity of a brain-damaged woman by ordering her name to stay off of Twitter and Facebook. The two sites were actually included in a list of "media" forbidden from publishing the information, according to the order seen by Reuters, despite the fact that both companies are US-based and the content they host is entirely user-generated.
But that's just a "regular" type of injunction—there's also a concept called a super-injunction. While an injunction simply bars a specific aspect of the story from being discussed (in the previous example, a name), a super-injunction is "super" because it bars any element of the story from being discussed at all. So, if a celebrity has an affair with her poolboy's dog and somehow manages to get a super-injunction from a judge, the mere discussion of any of it—the celebrity herself, the poolboy's clothing that day, the breed of the dog, whether the celebrity had a relationship with the poolboy before moving onto the dog, etc.—is not allowed.
In fact, celebrity cover-ups appear to be the primary reason for super-injunctions lately. Earlier this month, an anonymous Twitter user listed a number of actors, TV personalities, athletes, and other celebrities who allegedly obtained super-injunctions in order to keep details about their lives secret. According to the Financial Times, the High Court has handed out "at least 30" of these super-injunctions to the rich and famous, though prime minister David Cameron is reportedly uneasy about the practice.
That brings us to today. An entity going by "CTB" has filed suit against Twitter and some of its users for breaking a super-injunction over... something. According to Bloomberg, there were no details on what the super-injunction was about or who was accused of leaking the information. However, the initials "CTB" are also used in a separate suit about an athlete who won an anonymity order after allegedly having an affair with a reality TV "star," leading many to believe that CTB is the athlete and someone posted details of the affair to Twitter, leading to the new lawsuit.
Twitter is listed as a defendant in the suit, as well as "persons unknown responsible for the publication of information on the Twitter accounts." It's not clear how the High Court plans to get a US company like Twitter to comply, though. According to US law, sites like Twitter and Facebook aren't liable for the crazy postings of their users thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and for most things, users' speech is protected by the First Amendment.
As for Twitter's response to the story: "We are unable to comment."
Update: We've been informed by our resident Brit (Peter Bright) that CTB is soccer player Ryan Giggs, who is believed to be attempting to cover up his affair with TV personality Imogen Thomas. It's also worth noting that this is information that is easily found on the Web.
Twitter is listed as a defendant in the suit, as well as "persons unknown responsible for the publication of information on the Twitter accounts." It's not clear how the High Court plans to get a US company like Twitter to comply, though. According to US law, sites like Twitter and Facebook aren't liable for the crazy postings of their users thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and for most things, users' speech is protected by the First Amendment.
As for Twitter's response to the story: "We are unable to comment."
Update: We've been informed by our resident Brit (Peter Bright) that CTB is soccer player Ryan Giggs, who is believed to be attempting to cover up his affair with TV personality Imogen Thomas. It's also worth noting that this is information that is easily found on the Web.
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