Injunctions

[poliphilo]

Gossip is a basic, low-down human activity. It's hard to see how society could function without it.

 

Sometimes it's malicious, sometimes merely informational.  

 

If gossip is untrue it becomes slander and libel. And it can be addressed in law. No problems there.

 

But if the gossip is true it functions as a kind of rough justice. Mr Moneybags the adulterer may not like being talked about, but tough; he should have kept his trousers on.

 

And if he goes round the neighbourhood trying to shut people up he becomes a bully and an oppressor.

 

And that's at least as bad as being an adulterer.

 

I don't know whether gossip can be defined as a human right, but when someone tries to stop me doing it I feel that it is- and then I rebel and get stroppy and feel all righteous about it.

 

Most people do. Which is why a certain footballer's name is all over the Internet and his mug shot is on the front page of a Scottish newspaper and everybody is laughing at him.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I've never understood the argument "it's for the sake of his kids" because if he really cared about his kids, he wouldn't be screwing around, now would he?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

As Lou Reed says, "You're gonna reap, reap, reap what you sow."

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Nah that was the BBC version with the gospel choir in the background - the original was "You're gonna reap just what you sow."

Which in G - er, the footballer's case was "wild oats", really. Zero sympathy for him, I have to admit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If you want a reputation as an upright family man you should behave like one.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

There is a strange irony in his trying to force Titter to reveal the identities of others, so that he can keep his own secret.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

At this stage- now the secret is out- his pursuit (or his lawyers' pursuit) of Twitter is nothing but vindictiveness.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

The reason I broke the superinjunction (http://afterwatt.blogspot.com) and Twitter @Broxted was that it is two laws, one for the rich & one for the poor.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I salute you for it.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Thing is, nobody cares if the poor sleep around. It's only the rich and famous who are singled out for this tabloid vilification if they step out of line. Isn't that discriminatory too?

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

Yes but so is the salary Mr Giggs receives for kicking a bit of leather round a field.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Not so. Footballers are paid so much because they have a rare set of skills that football clubs value. It's the free market innit? If you had those skills, you would use them and get paid for them, wouldn't you?

If football clubs go bust that just shows that the clubs value those skills higher than the fans do.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

Well...you may have a point. Next the tyranny of beauty or should we feel sorry for Imogen & Gabby? (Nope).

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

International Amateur Weightlifting Team Committee?

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I Agree With This Completely, AFAIK ;-)

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

As far as I know...took me 5 mins to figure that one! I will spew forth truth from every orifice in 20 mins on my blogge.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Poor people have a smaller circle of people who are marginally attached to their lives. That circle is where the potential villifiers lie. The lesson here is pretty clear: if you're going to lie about your life, don't do it to a lot of people.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

The question is, though, who is entitled to privacy? I mean, if you or I did something equally sneaky, nobody gives a damn, but because he did it, there are nasty tabloid papers making money out of it. Just because somebody is famous, do they have to live like they are saintly hermits or have the ugly consequences spammed to the entire world? That really would be the price of fame.

You might have expected me to take a contrary view just for the hell of it.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Of course the irony is that if he'd just faced the music, it would all have been over relatively quickly because the media have the attention span of a butterfly with ADHD and after the initial buzz, they would have moved on to new things.

As it is, it's dragging out for ages and people like me, who don't read the tabloids and normally would have remained completely oblivious, are now aware of what he's been up to.

Besides, we already have libel laws. If what the papers printed was untrue, he could sue them. If it was true, then he should face the public, apologise to his fans and then behave himself in future.

I do take your point about a double standard in that the hoi polloi can do what they like -- though they will be censured by local gossip and, of course, damage their relationships -- but if a sportsman is making money out of his image as an upright family man, eg through sponsorship deals, then he would be profiting from a lie. If, on the other hand, all he's doing is playing football and nothing else, then I don't see that it matters who he's sleeping with.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think that's the reality of the situation now- if you want fame you surrender your privacy.

And perhaps it's not so bad- We all know Wayne Rooney's a slag, but it hasn't stopped him scoring goals- or having kids wanting to wear his shirt.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I *really* dislike gossip, having been the subject of quite a bit of untrue stuff over the years (and some true, most of which you can spot because it is far more unexpected and juicy than the tabloid-dull things people make up). I tend to be interested if someone's telling me that a dear friend is in difficulty or is happy. But if it's about someone I barely know doing something I don't care about with someone else I barely know, I cut people off because I find that kind of thing unbearably boring and it makes me think a great deal less of whoever is telling me it.

What's that quote... Mansfield/OH, 1917: "It has been said that there are three grades of mentality. People of the lowest mental grade talk about people, those of the next talk about things, and those of the highest talk about ideas."

... of course it omits "and arseholes censure what other people talk about."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've been an adulterer and cheating love rat in my time. I guess I got gossiped about. Someone once told me that I was known in my old haunts as The Randy Rev of Royton.

I was randy, I was a Rev- what's to complain about?

Normally I could care less about footballers and their floozies. I don't follow their sport. I only get riled when they start making it illegal for us to talk about them.

And sometimes it is in the public interest that we know about the carryings-on of the rich and famous. For example it would have been a very good thing if Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been gossiped about more. The same is arguably true of Fred Goodwin.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think there's another issue with these superinjunctions in that they seem to be taken out by powerful men, leaving the not-powerful women they have had their indiscretions with to bear the brunt of the press's worst excesses - and unable to defend themselves. That's not right.

On the whole, I am anti-super-injunction.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A law that only benefits a small portion of the population- ie. rich powerful males- is a very questionable kind of a law.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I just wish we were concluding that based on the shady activities of various large companies, rather than based on where some no-account footballer has put his willy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. But if we don't destroy these injunctions the shady corporations will use them- as they have done in the past and may still be doing for all we know.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm not sure I am being plain enough here: I agree with you. I don't like superinjunctions. I don't think they ought to be granted.

Seen this?

http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/05/do-not-read-this.html?spref=tw

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So there are 80 out there- and we have information about a handful of them- hmmmmm......

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

In the end the law is going to be unenforceable, and that will stop the daftness quite soon. What kind of genie did Tim Berners-Lee let out of the bottle?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

After Giggs people are going to think twice about wasting their money on injunctions.

I like how parliament and the judges have been bouncing off one another- the way they were designed to do. I think today- indeed this whole series of events- has been good for democracy.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

The basic structure of the internet (technically and conceptually) far preceeds Tim Berners Lee. It was designed to survive a war; it assesses damage and then routes around it. And censorship is just another form of damage.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I dont remember the source of this quote, but it is certainly worth repeating: "Gossip is a polite form of murder by character assassination."

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

When news like this comes out - and it does terribly often and ad nauseam, all I care about is if the person is doing his or her job, not who they are banging!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If the person is a sports person or entertainer it hardly matters- but if they're- say- a politician who is harassing female staff (like Arnie) I think it's quite important that we know.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, it's not murder. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, etc".