Social Media – Making the Law Irrelevant?
by Dean Orgill, May 25th, 2011
There cannot be many occasions in this Country when football has been linked, even indirectly, with fundamental issues of human rights and the relevance of law in society.
Whilst motor sport has recently had its own indirect connection to the development of privacy law; football, or rather the (alleged) activities of footballers, has now become a premier league player in the fixtures between the privacy laws and the freedom of social media.
Should people be able to prevent the publication of unfounded allegations against them? Put like that I suspect most people would say yes.
Should the press be able to bring public figures to account for their misdeeds, especially if their public persona is based on a strong positive personal image? Again I suspect that most people would say yes.
The more difficult area is where the allegations are not proven. Here, in the context of news print and publication the law can provide a remedy by way of a temporary injunction which can often be obtained in a matter of a few hours.
But even at its speediest the law apparently cannot keep pace with the digital media age.
Whilst the principles of injunctive rights clearly still apply to digital media. In a situation where there is mass disobedience, especially if that disobedience has the capacity to remain anonymous, how can the law actually be applied in practice?
The question was asked whether all 75,000 people who recently posted a name on Twitter would be pursued and such action must be viewed as being unlikely to say the least.
In this situation is the law credible in any way, is it in disrepute or is it just simply irrelevant ?
If these questions can be asked with any seriousness then clearly there are issues to be resolved.
Any system of law will reflect the society in which it develops. But as it reflects it lags behind the developments of that society. The law will indeed change to follow the changes in society. This has always been the case and always will be.
However, digital media poses new challenges, not least in respect of the pace at which it continues to develop.
So the second question is, can the law develop at the necessary speed in order to remain relevant ?
It is an intriguing question.
It will be an interesting campaign to watch, and indeed “Fergie-time” may be required to allow the law to equalise.
