Twitter forced to reveal identity of user

Yet another interesting development in the whole privacy law story.

South Tyneside Council has issued subpoenas to a Californian court demanding that Twitter reveal the personal information of a blogger called Mr Monkey who has made a series of allegations against leading members of the Council.

You may remember that two weeks ago, Ryan Giggs attempted to obtain the details of Twitter users who had named him as the football star accused of having an affair with former Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. However, Giggs brought the lawsuit at the high court in London and as Twitter is based in the US, nothing was done. The move by the Council to approach Californian courts will likely be seen as a landmark moment in the continued privacy battle.

A spokesman for South Tyneside Council said that “the council has a duty of care to protect its employees and as this blog contains damaging claims about council officers, legal action is being taken to identify those responsible.”

Now, as you all know, the internet is not regulated. However, this does not mean that users such as Mr Monkey can go around making libellous remarks about people in power. Or does it? The internet is not regulated after all…

A2: We Media and Democracy

Please use the below as a tool for your revision, you should be able to discuss all of the images / concepts included:

https://prezi.com/secure/12d443010ae1d1d5a255b36ff8e1118b52a56456/

Front cover coverage of the Giggs Privacy case

As predicted in my previous post, the papers were today awash with the Giggs story with every single paper covering the story on its front page. Have a look at a selection of covers below (thanks to the mediaguardian website).

Winner of pun of the year is The Mirror with their ‘Naming Private Ryan’ headline. Genius.

The injunction story shows no signs of slowing down…

When I explained to you how a super injunction would stop an MP from naming the person in Parliament, you all looked at me quizzically and asked the obvious question of “why on earth would an MP want to raise it in Parliament?”

And my answer to you comes in the form of this article from the BBC, which headline their story as ‘Ryan Giggs named by MP as injunction footballer.’ Have a read, and note how they never state that Giggs is the footballer in question. Papers are now able to report the story without fear of being sued, so watch for a barrage of front covers tomorrow morning exposing what all of us already knew.

Silly Ryan. He shouldn’t have been so tight and gone and got himself a hyper injunction instead.

What would Baudrillard say about all this? In this instance the reality has been Twitter, not the media who are supposed to hold up a mirror to society.

The Privacy case continues

“All publicity is good publicity.” Not in the case of Imogen Thomas, who is pushing for the lifting of the current injunction Ryan Giggs has about papers printing details about their affair. Sorry, alledged affair.

At the high court in London, Mr Justice Eady – explaining why he had granted an injunction preventing the naming of the footballer last month – said there was “ample reason not to trust” Thomas, in an eight-page judgment that allowed some details of her dealings with the footballer to be made public.

The judge noted that evidence “appeared strongly to suggest that [Giggs] was being blackmailed” – although he did not reach a final conclusion on the point. Thomas denies the allegation.

The Guardian provides some quite interesting detail about how the case has unfolded:

Evidence put before Eady last month by the footballer accused Thomas of asking for money, a signed football shirt and match tickets.

Thomas and the Premiership player met four times between September and December last year, according to the footballer’s evidence. She then contacted him by text in March, which led him to conclude she was thinking of selling her story, according to the judge’s summary. She told him that “she wanted, or ‘needed’ a payment from him of £50,000”.

The footballer agreed to meet her “in a hotel where he was staying” in April. There he gave her a signed football shirt but said he was not prepared to give her £50,000. She asked to see him again shortly afterwards, to which “he agreed with reluctance” and provided her with some football tickets.

Although the position was “by no means clear” Eady said the evidence “appeared to suggest” Thomas arranged the two hotel meetings “in collaboration with photographers and/or journalists”.

The player claimed that on 13 April, he texted Thomas to say he might be willing to offer her some money after all. At this point, Thomas is accused of attempting to solicit £100,000 from the player – actions the judge thought could be interpreted as blackmail, although he added: “I cannot come to any final conclusion about it at this stage.”

The next day, an account of a sexual relationship between Thomas and an unidentified footballer appeared in the Sun, prompting the request for an injunction to stop his identity being revealed.

Interestingly, the full court report of the case has been made available on line and can be read here. This is just another example of the power of the the internet – had this been ten years ago, the notes from the court case would have gone directly to journalists who would have put their own spin on them. Now however, the public can see the information directly themselves, indicating that the internet is creating a much more democratic society.

A2: An ending to the Ian Tomlinson case

We were discussing this case today as an example of Citizen Journalism and funnily enough, the results of the inquest in to Ian Tomlinson’s death at the G20 summit were publicised today.

Jurors have found the policeman who attacked Tomlinson at the event, PC Simon Harwood, guilty of unlawful death. Check out the BBC’s coverage for further details.

This is a fantastic ending to a case which demonstrates just how powerful Citizen Journalism can be. Remember that without the video of the PC attacking Tomlinson taken on a mobile phone and then published by The Guardian, the court case would not have never seen the light of day. This is a great example of ‘We Media’ and democracy. Learn this one inside out people!

Amazing.

http://www.coleofduty.com/

A2: The citizen journalism debate

The recent uprisings in the Middle East has brought out some quite opposing debates about the concept of citizen journalism. On the one hand, you have writers such as Emily Bell who wrote in The Guardian that:

“It is impossible to imagine how a story as vivid as that of Mubarak’s fall in Egypt could have been told without the reporting of Al-Jazeera ….and what local bloggers and citizens were tweeting or posting through social media links.” (read full article here).

Whilst on the other side of the fence, writing for the Global Journalist, Michael J. Jordan negates the use of the Citizen Journalism term:

“Who exactly were these men storming Tahrir Square on horse and camelback? Anyone can tweet a message about horsemen trampling protesters, but it’s the nosy journalists who try to trace them to Mubarak’s secret police.” (read full article here)

It’s an interesting debate, and one that would be well worthy of exploring for any of the digital media related questions.

A political mashup

Fantastic example of how social media can be utilised in order to get messages across. Check out the following:

New police.uk website maps crime in your area

A great example of the development of technology and how media allows us to interact in a more communal environment is the new crime-mapping website police.uk.

Launched today, the website had crashed by around lunchtime owing to the huge amounts of traffic it was receiving. The home office confirmed that the site is getting around 5 million hits per hour – that’s 75,000 hits every minute.

The site allows you to see the offences reported in your local street by entering a street name or postcode and people will be able to find out which crimes have taken place on or near their street within the past month and which officers are responsible for their area.

This is a great example of how the internet is creating a more democratic society whereby the flow of information is bigger than ever before. For example, should you want to buy or rent a house you would be able to get up to the date reports about the levels of burglary or car crime within that area.

WikiLeaks: US Government takes drastic steps

The US Government has ordered a subpoena to the owners of Twitter ordering them to disclose personal information of a number of people connected to the whistle=blowing website WikiLeaks.

The District Court in Virginia said it wanted information including user names, addresses, connection records, telephone numbers and payment details, the BBC reports. Those named include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Reports indicate the Department of Justice may seek to charge him with conspiring to steal documents with Private First Class Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst.

Private Manning is facing a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for allegedly sending WikiLeaks the diplomatic cables, as well military logs about incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq and a classified military video.

The order to Twitter was issued on 14 December, and the San Francisco-based website was told not to disclose it had been served the subpoena. The BBC says the court removed those restrictions on Wednesday and authorised Twitter to disclose the order to its customers. According to WikiLeaks, the subpoena was only made public because Twitter took legal action contesting the ruling.

Others named included Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, who revealed on Friday that the department of justice had asked Twitter for her personal details and all of her tweets since November 2009. The MP says she plans to fight the ruling and has raised the matter with the Icelandic justice minister.

It seems as though the US Government is doing everything that they can in order to bring Assange and his followers down. The irony of the whole matter is that they’re now using methods which potentially infringe on people’s privacy in order to obtain information. Which is exactly what they’re taking Assange to task for.Prediction for 2011? Assange gets assassinated. And the US government will blame Al Qaeda.

A2: The internet and democracy

There is an absolutely AMAZING article on how new technology is affecting the way in which we protest, which could have been written with A2 Media students directly in mind. Please make sure that you spend some time to read it over the Christmas break: How social media changed protest

 

WikiLeaks founder arrested

Probably the biggest Media related story of the year, the WikiLeaks saga continues to get front pages with the news today that founder of the website, Julian Assange, has been arrested this morning on suspicion of committing sexual crimes, which he denies. Bearing in mind that Assange was recently hauled into the courts on the same accusation, and acquited of the charges, it seems as though the Powers That Be are intent on getting him into jail on any count before he manages to release any more confidential information.

Interesting thing to note here folks is that he is not being charged with anything directly relating to the information published on his website which says a lot about freedom of speech and democracy. The Guardian recently published a fantastic article about Assange which is well worth a read – read it here.

You can read The Guardian’s excellent coverage of the cables by following this link.

Exposing a Fifa-fiasco

Very interesting story about freedom of speech this one. Last night the BBC aired a documentary about the football industry in which three FIFA executives were accused of corruption. What makes this story interesting is the fact that the three execs facing the accusations are also the three execs who will be deciding in the next few days whether the UK will be hosting the 2018 world cup.

In the Panorama documentary, Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, African football chief Issa Hayatou and South America’s Nicolas Leoz were alleged to have received secret payments from a sports marketing firm. A fourth FIFA executive committee member, Jack Warner, was also accused of attempting to sell World Cup tickets on the black market. Warner is seen as a key ally for England 2018 officials whose vote will be crucial if their bid is to be successful.

What’s interesting is the media’s response to the documentary, accusing the BBC of scuppering our chances of winning the 2018 bid. Prime Minister David Cameron even commented on the matter saying: “Is it frustrating that Panorama’s doing this programme a few days before? Of course it is. But it’s a free country and you have to roll with that. I think Fifa will understand that.”

What do you think of the story? Should the BBC be allowed to air such material a few days before we hear about our bid? Are the BBC irresponsible for airing it? Should the public have a right to know about the corruption throughout Fifa before a decision is made?

Wikileaks: Yet more documents to embarress the US Government

Whistleblower Wikileaks have again released over 250,000 classified messages which have been sent from their embassies, containing highly secretive information.

Some of the information released, as uncovered by The Guardian’s coverage includes:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

• Inappropriate remarks by Prince Andrew about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.

• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.

• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a “virtual mafia state”.

• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of “lavish gifts”, lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italiango-between.

• Devastating criticism of the UK’s military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

What is the effect of the public being able to access this information? Is this reducing our faith in our Governments? Does the fact that we are able to access this data mean that we are living in a more democratic society than ever before?

Facebook destroys my Saturday viewing yet again

Last year we had the highly appropriate ‘Killing In The Name Of’ by Rage Against The Machine as our Christmas number one. This year it looks as though we’re going to have to put up with the warblings of an overweight Brazilian relic as we tuck into our Christmas dinners whilst watching Top of the Pops.

Each Sunday night I sit on my couch waiting for Wagners departure from the X Factor, but due to some increasingly popular facebook sites, Wagner gets saved.

This is a great example of how the (great?) British public can use digital technology in order to get their voices heard and reach people that ten years ago they would have never been able to reach. Currently there are a number of Facebook groups with members totaling the thousands who are encouraging people to vote to keep Wagner in. Groups such as “Petition Magners to change name to “Wagners” in support of the great man” are seeing off the competition week by week.

Is it right? Last year we saw the departure of the talented Lucy who was up against Jedward. This year we’re starting to see the same kind of pattern. How do we stop it? Simples. Just set up a Facebook group yourself.

Twitter – a new kind of celebrity endorsement

Celebrity endorsement is one of the most popular forms of advertising techniques. Knowing that Kerry Katona shops at Iceland ensures that I’ll never shop there before I die…

This week it has been established that celebrities around the world are being invited to join websites such as sponsoredtweets or  Ad.ly which calls itself a”Celebrity Micro Endorsement Platform” whereby celebrities can set a fee per tweet for the endorsement of a product. Lindsey Lohan’s profile on says she will tweet for a $US2985.80 fee, while Khloe Kardashian (sister of reality star Kim) will tweet for a slightly lesser $US2,941.

Any adverts celebrities choose to Tweet have to be prefixed with either ‘Spon’ or ‘Ad’ so that the reader will be fully aware that what they’re reading is an advert. But with such strong links to their followers, and a captive target audience, this raises a number of questions in relation to democracy. Surely the whole point of Twitter is to promote interaction between user and follower, not to promote and push products onto an unsuspecting audiences?

WikiLeaks – the new face of journalism

Hopefully you’ve all been following the story about the publication of a whole host of classified government documents detailing events in Iraq since the 2003 British invasion.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, this Whistleblower (a person or company which releases secrets to the public to expose possible wrongdoing) published the doscuments to highlight the 109,000 violent deaths between 2004 and the end of 2009. The deaths included 66,081 civilians, 23,984 people classed as “enemy”, 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces, and 3,771 coalition troops. It is estimated that around 15,000 of these deaths had not been reported. Why do you think this was?

In addition to the deaths, the reports also highlight a range of torturous activities carried out by US soldiers, such as throwing acid in detainees faces and cutting off the fingers of prisoners.

Politicians and bigwigs from around the world have condemned the leaking of the documents, stating that they would arouse further conflict between the East and West.Nothing new there then.

What is more interesting, and what you should be thinking about, is how the media have responded to the publication of the documents. WikiLeaks has faced a barrage of criticism from the worlds media (including a typical Daily Mail story which included the completely irrelevant fact that the owner of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, had recently been cleared of sex abuse charges by the Swedish courts). In an opinion piece on the Fox News site,Christian Whiton lambasts Congress and the White House for failing to tackle the leaking of hundreds of thousands of files about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and demands action.

“First and foremost, it is important to understand that this is a serious challenge to our national security,” he writes. “It’s not about government transparency or free speech, which is the claim WikiLeaks and its leader, a certain Julian Assange, are making. Rather, this is an act of political warfare against the United States. WikiLeaks is a foreign organisation that obtained these documents as a result of espionage and it means to use the information to thwart and alter US policy.”

Err… so what if it does? Surely the general public have a right to know?

The publication of these files, and the press reaction could mark the start of a turning point in the way in which we receive our news. Notice how no media outlet has brought into question why these documents were kept from the public in the first place which suggests that media outlets were already fully aware of this information’s existence. Why is it that WikiLeaks is doing the work of a Journalist? Shouldn’t someone from the BBC be unearthing documents like this? Would the information have ever come to light?

Studying the media is not just about not believing everything you see or read. It’s also about the things that you don’t see.