It was fascination to be part of the Twitter adventure today where the gagging order injucting The Guardian to stop publishing the question asked by MP Paul Farrelly regarding the company Trafigura and the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.
There is still a lot to come out, such as how it was possible to get an injunction in place that stopped the reporting of Parliament is not clear. The supremacy of Parliament is unquestionable and it is not possible to sue anyone for what they say in Parliament. Regardless, the attempt by Carter-Ruck was futile as there was no power that could stop the story being spread on the blogosphere and Twitter at lightening speed. If this was to protect Trafigura it has only achieved in making them reviled by a large section of the country.
Carter-Ruck has a infamous history in legal circles for the tactics they employed in ensuring the privacy of their clients stayed private while charging a very lucrative fee. An article in the very same Guardian http://bit.ly/15OKAH by Carter-Ruck ex-Parter is enlightening. I wonder if Carter-Ruck will be sending a bill to Trafigura? Carter-Ruck are obviously a clever bunch but did they even consider the force that is known as Social Media when advising their client? Apparently not.
We will be seeing more and more stories being spread this way. When appalling behaviour is revealed as in the case of the dumping of toxic chemicals in the third world for profit this can only a good thing. But what happens when the story spread is false and causes harm or damage? Will it be possible to manipulate such stories?
The genie is well and truly out of the bottle and we are at the beginning of a very open and publicly controlled news sources in Twitter and blogs. We will not always get it right but how will we behave when we get it wrong?
