the corner office

a blog, by Colin Pretorius

Superinjunctions

If you want to know who the footballer is who got jiggy with the Imogen lady then go to any news web site and look for the example text they'll undoubtedly be quoting then go to twitter and bang some of the text into the 'search' box and off you go, you've just witnessed someone being in contempt of court.

Strength in numbers. I noticed some twitterererer who was happily blabbing who it was, saying 'they can't sue all of us' and I thought 'yeah dude, the wealthy footballer doesn't need to sue all of you, he just needs to sue one of you. Are you feeling lucky?'

This reminds me of a joke I remember hearing as a kid. Soldiers never worry about the bullet with their name on it. They worry about the one addressed to 'To Whom It May Concern.'

I don't think that has much to with the issue at hand, but I've always enjoyed the joke.

I digress. I think this superinjunction business isn't as cut and dried as the indignant media or the self-righteous twitterati would like to make it. I think if you agree that people have some right to privacy then you need to be careful when you start huffing and puffing about superinjunctions. If you say 'privacy yes' then you agree there's a line, and you're just getting worked up over where to draw it. Now I think you can have some serious discussions about that line, and people will have different opinions, but I think a lot of the people getting extremely self-righteous over where an arbitrary and conceptual line is being drawn are just full of shit.

What's more, the fact that it's the rich and famous in the UK who get these things means the papers have had a field daying playing class war. Doesn't help the issue, much.

Aaaanway, I found out who it was because I was curious. Apparently the dude's all famous and stuff but I'd never heard of him before. My life never felt incomplete because of it.

{2011.05.22 21:33}

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