"Twitter the cat" is out of the bag!

New Twitter user publishes claims over privacy injunctions
Claims about 14 gagging orders follow UK and US court battles to unmask anonymous tweeters

Josh Halliday
May 31, 2011


A user Twitter has published claims about 14 privacy injunctions. (Photograph: Chris Batson/Alamy)

Another Twitter user has published claims about 14 privacy injunctions allegedly obtained by high-profile performers, sportsmen and politicians.

The new Twitter account launched on Monday and has almost 800 followers at the time of publication.

On Monday evening, the anonymous user began posting a series of hitherto unpublished claims about the alleged gagging orders, including links to news articles and court documents.

Earlier this month, a Twitter user amplified pressure to reveal the identities of celebrities said to have taken out privacy injunctions with a string of claims about the alleged indiscretions of six prominent personalities. The account quickly gained more than 100,000 followers, with many more forwarding the claims across the internet.

Ryan Giggs, the Manchester United footballer named by an MP in the Commons as being behind a gagging order preventing reporting of an alleged affair with a reality TV star, is attempting to unmask Twitter users accused of revealing details of the privacy injunction.

Giggs brought the lawsuit at the high court in London and Twitter is understood to have successfully resisted handing over the users' private information.

However, Twitter was forced to hand over the personal details of a British user earlier this month in a separate case involving south Tyneside council. The local authority brought the legal challenge in a Californian court – a move which could spark a change of tack for UK authorities attempting to unmask anonymous Twitter users.

The original Twitter claims – some of which were rejected as false by their subjects – prompted the lord chief justice, Lord Judge, to describe modern technology as being completely out of control following the publication of Lord Neuberger's report on privacy injunctions.

Judge said: "I'm not giving up on the possibility that people who peddle lies about others through using technology may one day be brought under control, maybe through damages, very substantial damages, maybe even injunctions to stop them peddling lies. It will take quite an effort for parliament to get a grip on this."

Twitter says it removes "illegal tweets and spam" but that it "strive[s] not to remove tweets on the basis of their content."

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