The web will outflank privacy laws
Raymond Snoddy on Max Mosley’s European Court failure, the anonymous Twitterer who blew apart the increasing misuse of super-injunctions, and the hackettes from the Daily Telegraph who enticed Vince Cable to express bile and bias against Rupert Murdoch…
There is a remarkable and very elegant spread in today’s Times across all of pages four and five.
The stars of the coverage are Max Rufus Mosley, the still anonymous Twitterer who in an instant blew apart the increasing misuse of super-injunctions, and the hackettes from the Daily Telegraph who enticed business secretary Vince Cable into regrettable indiscretions.
In a way the most interesting one of the three is the Daily Telegraph case, despite the lack of obvious crowd-pleasers such as sado-masochistic orgies, three in a bed footballers or sleazy actors.
The often unfairly derided Press Complaints Commission has clearly got it right by censuring the Telegraph for sending undercover reporters to the political surgeries of senior Lib-Dem members of the Coalition to find out what they really thought of Tory policies.
A worthy venture you might have thought and one that really produced the goods. We had a Business Secretary forthrightly expressing bile and bias against Rupert Murdoch when he was soon to adjudicate on the multi-billion takeover of BSkyB.
Cable’s behaviour was disgraceful and it is likely that the only reason he kept his job was to prevent the Coalition government being fatally undermined by the departure of a second senior Lib-Dem Cabinet minister under a cloud in quick succession.
There are rules however about the use of subterfuge by journalists and general “fishing expeditions” designed to entrap rather than investigate existing reasonable suspicions are not allowed and on this occasion they were clearly broken.
By contrast The Sunday Times undercover work to expose the cash for questions scandal was entirely justified because they acted on tip-offs that MP’s really were taking payments to ask Parliamentary questions.
The PPC verdict is welcome because it underlines the fact that journalists are not entitled to do anything they like, that there are limits and boundaries and agreed rules.
Indeed if the very concept of what IS journalism is going to survive in the internet age then it will be through the provision of verified and authentic information produced by ethical means.
The news equivalent of free-range food.
Another rather more formal body also got it right yesterday – the judges of the European Court of Human Rights when they kicked out the Mosley case.
Even The Sun happily acknowledged that the court it likes to hate came up with the right answer “for once”.
It is certainly nice to see judges, who are not always champions of freedom of expression, being aware of the likely “chilling” effect on media investigations of corruption if the Mosley manoeuvre had been successful.
Though the judges rejected as unnecessary Mosley’s wish that subjects should be warned in advance by newspapers about to have their privacy breached it’s a case of two cheers for the European Court.
They found in favour of Mosley in his battle with the News of the World. They argued that Article 8 of the Human Rights convention protecting privacy and the right to family life could take precedence over Article 10 guaranteeing freedom of information in some circumstances.
But in end the judges decided unanimously to send Mosley packing. Apart from the chilling effect there were doubts about the effectiveness of such “pre-notification” requirements. The judges also noted that there was “a wide margin of appreciation” for privacy issues in the UK courts.
Indeed there is but has the unknown Twitterer virtually killed off super-injunctions? Almost certainly.
Anyone, whether of serious purpose or just plain mischievous, can go into an internet café and send a tweet naming the names with varying degrees of accuracy. Even if the message is subsequently taken down – and there is no guarantee that the American-based twitter will agree to do so – it has already set off on its travels far beyond recall.
This generally law-abiding citizen was on like a flash to follow the tweets and find confirmation of the already well-known identities of the actor and the ever-so-famous footballer.
However the judges may rail they are dealing with a force of nature here and it is almost meaningless to argue whether it is right or wrong, fair or unfair.
It is now obvious that it will have to be Parliament rather than judges that will have to try to define where the boundaries between freedom of expression should be drawn.
As Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt put it yesterday: “We are in a situation where technology, and Twitter in particular, is making a mockery of the privacy laws we have.”
It will not be easy to do anything about it because Twitter or something very much like it will always be with us.
A way has to be found of protecting “genuine” super-injunctions, such as protecting the identity of children or preventing personal information such as medical records.
As for misbehaving celebrities who court publicity to boost their careers and wealth then the more leaking the merrier. In the end they will get the message and save their money and if their behaviour is outrageous enough to attract the attentions of the News of the World – so be it, as long as their mobile phones aren’t hacked.
The problem remains that whatever Parliament decides everything will probably continue to appear somewhere on the web whether fair or accurate.
The traditional media has to differentiate itself from the morass – and accuracy and fairness should be the watchwords – while always erring on the side of freedom of expression.