DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

Plus, it's not like we have to keep quiet, Dave Cameron is already on ILX. His name is WATERFACE.

http://order-order.com/2013/05/21/attorney-general-warns-press-over-rebekah-brooks-and-andy-coulson/

NO COMMENT.

I suppose that means this may not be a superinjunction, was there any change or call for change in superinjunction laws after the Ryan Giggs thing? It seems pointless for it to exist if in every case the only way to really enact it would be by charging 10,000 Twitter users.

yeah LBI like I say it's obv silly but since stet deleted your 1st post (I ass=u+me it was he anyway) we might as well respect that he wants to tread carefully, at least until this story explodes in oh 48hrs or so

NV: Et tu, Brute?

Why do you people feel such fear in your bodies/minds when it comes to this? It is just so wrong!

So ilx discovers something in a filename dropped by Guido Fawkes. Big deal.

Amazing kdt never took one out huh

@wins, I hadn't even noticed he'd deleted that post. Thanks for the heads up.

I will respect it for Stet. But I've difficulty to comprehend the magnitude of fear in British ilxors when it concerns stuff like this.

Well done, UK government, well done.

i don't think it's fear tbf

Then what is it?

All British people here consciously refraining from *naming names*... What other than fear is that?

prudence

Yeah, cut that out please. It's no more about a "magnitude of fear" than it is the same prudence that leads to us deleting links to copyrighted downloads etc. There's no free speech in the UK, which is where I am. I have a reasonable amount of protection because we don't pre-moderate posts, but not a massive amount.

also lols xp

a) could care less about what 1 or more consenting adults does for sexual jollies
b) am broadly in agreement with the principle of not libelling people without good cause
c) we can discuss this without having to use the names on a public board
d) whether i personally care about being taken to court, i have a collective responsibility to the people who run and use this board to avoid it getting hassle from the Man if poss

i don't think any of them mean i'm sitting here trembling, i just care more about ILX than i do about any of what sounds like a boring "scandal" that weighs pretty low on the list of reprehensible things done by its possible participants

Stet, honestly, I didn't mean any trouble for you, I hope you know that. This whole "we can't name the names" thing seems fucked up in my opinion, but I will refrain if it would get you in trouble.

I'm just genuinely sad there indeed is no free speech in the UK, apparently...

I'm sad that you're sad, but chin up, it ain't that bad! like I say it's good for the lols.I mean what's funnier than unnece$$@ry g00glepr00fing? and we have this amazing comedian called ian hislop who says "allegedly" like u wouldn't believe

Hey, NV, I am with you. And ilx.

But I don't think it's about the "boringness" of it - ILX discusses "boring things" all the time. This sex scandal isn't boring, far from it. All sex-scandals remotely linked to heads of state are interesting. You call it boring, but you wouldn't call it boring if it were a topic allowed to freely discuss.

"c) we can discuss this without having to use the names on a public board", of course we could. But why would we? For in your analogy we could also discuss it WITH saying names out loud, same as not saying the names out loud, it seems; it should make no difference, should it?

But apparently it does, for British people. MI-5 isn't going to search through ILX people, and even if they would, they'd have no case, not even remotely. It might not be fear, as I said earlier. But it is certainly wrong, for people to feel they can't name names of public figures...

In all honesty, I think it is sad, Wins. This is the one and only thing that seems to manage to suppress people from the left and right, aka everyone, to freely speak their mind. The most outspoken, enlightened people on here from Britain all go hush when it concerns this. I respect people abiding the law and all that, but that is a bitter disappointment.

Especially since the UK is the country where I will be living for the rest of my life, shortly hereafter...

I probably wrote a lot of tl;dr things. All I meant was: wtf UK 'n UK ilxors, you can't speak freely about this shit? Wtf?

Is there another thread where you could do this?

:-(

Looking forward to press conference later today...

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/01/306681/confidence/

It's been around that level for a few weeks now, right?

Presstv.ir seems legit tho.

Press Tv, owned by the iranian republican guard and has George Galloway as lead talent.

i don't know guys, it says at least 30 MPs singed letters calling for the vote, sounds legit to me

Singed? As in singing, or slightly burning?

(typo is article's own)

the amusing thing is that it pops up as an autosearch on twitter if you even type one of their names in

The big point seems to be that this information might prejudice a couple of upcoming trials. If that's the case, I don't understand how the British public could despise these people any more than they already do.

How would a similar situation be dealt with in the Netherlands, LBI?

The main driver in super-injunctions is an interpretation of European privacy laws. Essentially the UK government has dragged its heels bringing in privacy legislation so judges have to interpret pan-European laws themselves.

Hypothetically, if a Dutch politician or celebrity had an affair, would they have any way of preventing publication, as they would in France?

The short answer would be: no, they can't prevent publication.

A politician could, in theory, sue the media outlet to prevent it from being published (obviously they have to be aware of the fact that a publication intends to publish). But if it concerns amorous liaisons, and a media organization has incriminating evidence, say photos, the chance a judge will stop publication is close to 0%. If the politician can prove that it really is a completely untrue smear campaign, the judge can put a ban on publication. This can also go for something verifiably wrong of something relating to the politician's job.
If it concerns a matter of national security a judge can also stop publication. We've had one extreme example where Dutch intelligence literally held two journalists hostage for them to reveal their sources on a national security story.

But if it's a love affair, the judge is highly likely to tell the politician 'don't do the crime if you can't do the time'.

We all know it's stupid, we went through this a year ago with the Ryan Giggs thing. Ultimately, I believe people have a right to privacy but when you consider that a super-injunctions has been used to prevent a national newspaper printing the name of a company dumping toxic waste off the coast of Africa you realise the system is bullshit.

if we had a properly worded privacy law we ought to be able to separate the malicious tittle tattle from matters of public interest. some newspapers obviously thrive on publishing malicious tittle tattle but that's a matter for their editors i guess.

I want to make a blingee with this phrase:

but that's a matter for their editors

'the public interest'

Who do we trust to define this.

Anyone who can actually tell the difference between 'the public interest' and 'stuff the public is interested in'.

Go on

i don't like the phrase "public interest" either but i really don't see why it's okay for media orgs to publish stories about people's love lives or medical problems unless those things have a bearing on corrupt or criminal behaviour

on the other hand i guess people shdn't work in entertainment/play professional sport/be politicians unless they want every single moment of their lives to be fair play for entertaining nosey wankers

there's an element of wanting it both ways from some slebs though- 5 page Hello! spread one day, complaining about tabloid intrusion the next.

which IMO makes it extremely hard to legislate- however repellent Hello! is, none of the people who appear in it do so under duress (unless you want to get into the murky field of what, under capitalism, you might consider to be structure and agency when it comes to people deciding things like this)

it's a pretty lame excuse usually. i have to do lots of things for my job that i don't want to do at the drop of a hat when i'm not at work.

difference between posing for photos at an agreed shoot to publicize your latest movie and getting papped in your back garden scratching your bum seems fairly clear-cut to me

there's an element of wanting it both ways from some slebs though- 5 page Hello! spread one day, complaining about tabloid intrusion the next.

well, you could look at it the other way - having a 5-page hello! spread is a chance to have writing about you in the press that you control (and to get some money out of it!) when you're already subject to tabloid use of your life in ways you can't really control.

it might be true that there's no way to square a free press with legislation to protect privacy. (tho by "free" press we mostly mean "owned by a few wealthy individuals/corporations whose main interests are in making money and obtaining political influence"). this stuff might be best left to individual moral conscience. i just don't have much faith in the individual moral consciences of newspaper owners et al

Of the public, then?

According to the Random House Dictionary, Public interest is "1. the welfare or well-being of the general public; commonwealth. 2. appeal or relevance to the general populace: a news story of public interest."[1]

First definition rather than the second seems workable - its really not hard. The claim that defining "public interest" is difficult seems like a smokescreen to stop "public interest" from being legally defined.

Then nothing else shoud be published, or anything challenged outside those terms is liable for injunction, or wha

Leaving aside the lol internet global device thing, which is the thing.

Im all for e news being shut down if thats the mandate obv, its the line btwn that and idk giggs shagging frinstance that is if not blurry then certainly fuck all to do with the high echelon publically maintained srs business of the courts.

This may yet be of genuine public interest depending on how badly they played Cameron.

Woah

Have they the real cameron trussed up somewhere? For how long?

oh hey i just arrived in the us for my hols, has this story broken open in the uk yet?