It might sound like a sketch written for some far fetched comedy show but in fact it’s absolutely true. The High Court in Britain has served its first ever injunction via a social networking site, the increasingly popular micro-blogging site Twitter.
Lawyers on the case apparently thought this would be the best way to reach an anonymous individual who has been impersonating the right-wing blogger Donal Blaney, who just so happens to own the solicitor firm Griffin Law.
This move is bound to send massive shock waves through social networking sites, which up till now have been places where people reveal all manner of personal information about themselves.
Now though, these sites are becoming prime targets for employers and other ‘officials’ to find information on people that could be incriminating. No longer can you say whatever you want to or hide behind a fake profile.
“I think this is a landmark decision to issue a writ via Twitter,” said Dr Konstantinos Komaitis of Strathclyde University’s law faculty.
“You are creating a precedent that people will be able to refer to. It only takes one litigant to open the path for others to follow,” Komaitis, a lecturer in IT and Telecommunications told Reuters.
“The law tends to be quite cumbersome and slow, so to have a court deliberate on something like Twitter — so hot, so relevant — it shows quite impressive engagement.”
Can you imagine the shock the anonymous tweeter will get when they next go to log in to their account and see the message from the High Court?
“Whoever they are, they will be told to stop posting, to remove previous posts and to identify themselves to the High Court via a web link form,” said Andre Walker at Griffin Law.
Scary isn’t it?
We’re constantly hearing about people impersonating prominent people in the public eye on the Twitter site, despite the efforts of Twitter to prevent this. Last year they launched a system to verify real accounts.
Still, all you have to do is type in a search for a popular personality and you’ll see many who are claiming to be the “real” whoever.
Now Barrister Matthew Richardson, who won this unusual injunction, has said that issuing the writ via Twitter is a step towards preventing this.
“People have to learn that they can no longer hide behind the cloak of anonymity the Internet provides and break the law with impunity,” he said in a statement.
Don’t we live in interesting times?
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