Should we abolish super injunctions?

Yes – Gareth Rosser

The simple answer? Yes. Freedom of speech is one of the hallmarks of a civilised society, and injunctions curtail that freedom in a very real way. I mean, let’s be honest I’m a reasonable-ish person and in extreme and rare situations, I could be persuaded that injunctions might have a place. But these days, celebrities are using them to hide extramarital affairs or other activities of an embarrassing nature. Quite frankly, this is not enough of a reason.

One premiership footballer got an injunction granted because he might be ‘booed during games’. As a professional footballer you can expect to be heckled about something. ‘Cruel chants’ are apparently enough to warrant an injunction.

In taking out an injunction, these celebrities are trying to ignore one of the most important lessons we learn as children. Every action has a consequence. The celebrities hiding their identities are simply trying to avoid facing the consequences of their actions. What gives them that right? I mean, if you’re a famous public figure, then you’ll have known that the media would publish a story about your affair if they found out. And yet you still decided to have an affair. You knew the risks of discovery in our media age, don’t throw your toys out of the pram if you get caught out. Nobody was forcing you to play.

Meanwhile, injunctions open the door to hypocrisy, as Andrew Marr, former political correspondent for the BBC has demonstrated. A man whose career requires him to quiz politicians on their personal lives used the legal system to stop people prying into his personal life. How can anybody be a journalist and also have a gagging order placed upon the press? It doesn’t make any sense. At least Andrew Marr did the right thing, and confessed to having had a gagging order placed. He himself admitted to being embarrassed at having taken out such a thing. As well he should.

Injunctions themselves have become outdated since the evolution of social media websites. Facebook and Twitter allow rumours to spread at a ridiculous speed. So whilst official English news sources like the BBC, the Times and even Felix were not able to name Ryan Giggs, more than 75,000 Twitter users already had. This not only makes flaunting injunctions easy, but leads to wild rumours being accepted as fact. Innocent celebrities will be accused of having taken out gagging orders without any proof, and this can be taken as fact by the world at large. The best way to stop false accusations is to not give the public figures who have done something stupid a legal smokescreen.

The extent of these injunctions is mind–boggling. Until a peer announced that Sir Fred Goodwin had taken out an injunction to protect the information about his alleged affair, almost nobody knew about it. Not even the Members of Parliament who were investigating his management of the RBS bank during its nationalisation knew? Information directly relevant to the investigation might never have been known, thanks to the gagging order. This only serves to show what can happen when freedom of speech and freedom of the press is lost. The media is one of the ways we keep our leaders in check. Celebrities know they have to answer to the media, and through the media, to the public. Our leaders and public figures should be held accountable for their actions, and how do we do that if they can legally gag the media?

I’ll admit, maybe there is a place for injunctions in certain special cases. But in the way they’re currently being used undermines their purpose. They’re being used for selfish reasons, to escape consequences. And ironically, many of the injunctions taken out have led to more publicity for the celebrities, not less. I can’t say I don’t take some small satisfaction from this. I appreciate that celebrities are human. They make mistakes. We all do. But some celebrities seem to think they deserve to hide from their mistakes. With the dawning of the internet, celebrities may end up having to eat their just desserts.

No – Angry Geek

I realise you may be slightly concerned to see my name here, on the other side of the page, the one where the crazies live and people think that celebrities should be able to have affairs in secret. Well, yes and no. I’m here fighting for the side of superinjunctions not because I think it’s right to keep the naughty actions of others a secret, but because, seriously, fuck you guys.

I know. I know that is my excuse for just about everything. But something quite lovely almost happened to the newspaper headlines this week. They very nearly shut up. I have next to me yesterday’s copy of the Times, and only 50% of their front page is dedicated to this bullshit about someone’s penis gaining unauthorised access to another person’s vagina. Imagine that, only 50%. If only Mr. Giggs had managed to avoid being revealed by that stupid MP, we might’ve had something useful on our newspaper front pages this week, instead of utterly shit puns on his name and dire interviews with people who bumped into Imogen Thomas’ sister one day on the bus to Haskins.

You see, superinjunctions only serve the rich and the stupid. But those are exactly the kind of people I don’t want clogging up my media outlets. Far from being a slippery slope towards state censorship, the superinjunction laws are an amazing way for the celebrity world to shoot themselves in the foot. Less publicity means more real news. More real news means less need for me to write and tell you why I think you don’t need to hear about who is shagging who. You’re reading this now precisely because superinjunctions aren’t properly enforced yet. Imagine if they were. You wouldn’t be here! You’d be done by now, you’d be thumbing through the Music section or something. But no. You’ve got to finish reading this whole page. Look at all those words. You made this happen.

“But what if the bad men come,” I hear you cry, “What if we wake up in 1984.” and then you do that thing with your nose where you sneer at me for never having read it. Firstly, like you’d fucking notice. You feckless arseholes can’t even summon up the interest to detach yourself from Reddit and Facebook, god knows why you’re all concerned about the government taking over the freedoms you barely bother exercising. In a year that’s contained nuclear scares, huge earthquakes and continent-shaking revolutions, if the most you can get worried about is someone censoring your hilarious twitter hashtag jokes, then you deserve state oppression.

But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this slope isn’t slippery. It’s barely inclined, look. Every five seconds someone was mentioning Ryan Giggs on Twitter. The internet is sufficiently powerful that, should anything really malevolent happen and be covered up, that the truth would eventually out. This isn’t oiling up the slope and sitting on it arse-first. This is a case of telling the difference between things that are important (like NHS reform, and net neutrality – you remember, those things that were your flavour of the month earlier in the year) and things that are so utterly unimportant that important things actually bend slightly as they pass near them (like two empty vessels dicking furiously in some motel up north). If there’s one thing this horrific Conservative government could be useful for, and looking at the track record so far, I’d be surprised if it got above ‘one thing’, it’s shutting up the hordes of screaming Closer! readers and Loose Women viewers for good.

Yes, the people trying to stop information getting out freely are bad and evil and self–motivating. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t manipulate them for your own gain. In this case, if people with lots of money think that stopping newspaper headlines from using their name will solve all of their problems, then so be it. I encourage them to do so. We’ll continue being libellous on Twitter, and I can start buying newspapers again without feeling like I’m picking up a copy of Heat.

Leave my fucking newspapers alone, celebrities. You want your privacy, and I sure as shit want mine.