The Guardian newspaper was gagged from reporting a question to be asked in Parliament later this week, on legal grounds which appeared to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights. The question related to press freedom in light of injunctions that included the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast by a giant multinational corporation, as reported by BBC Newsnight in May (they are themselved now being threatened with legal action).

The press injunction was a ’super injunction’, meaning that they couldn’t even tell anyone they had been injuncted or by whom. A worrying legal trend, used by big bad corporations who don’t want people to think they are big bad corporations.

Fortunately, we now have the Internet. Political bloggers have a huge impact on public debate today. The Parliamentary question could be found in full on Guido Fawkes’ Blog last night. And, while traditional news media are still injuncted from reporting the contents of something called the Minton Report, you can find as much mind-numbing detail about it as you can handle, with a simple web search. If you want.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger tweeted about it today, before appearing in court, and was re-tweeted by Stephen Fry to his 829,207 followers. Once that happened, it’s not surprising that the top three trending topics this morning related to the story. And lawyers Carter-Ruck dropped their injunction.

Rusbridger said on Channel 4 News earlier this evening: “The effect of Twittering… was a PR disaster for Trafigura – if they were trying to keep it secret, suddenly they had the whole blogosphere on their case, and I imagine their PR advisers said ‘for heaven’s sake, this is  causing endless pain, let’s just stop it.’”

The message is clear. It is more difficult to restrain free speech in the age of the Internet than ever before. Wherever the freedom of the press is threatened, from Ahmadinejad’s Iran, to Berlusconi’s Italy, to Brown’s Britain; whether political or corporate; the Internet – particularly the ‘real time web’ – fills the void. The use of injunctions to prevent corporate embarrassment doesn’t work in a world where the culture of top-down publishing has been replaced by mass participation in social media sites. You may injunct the Guardian or sue Newsnight – but you can’t silence us all.

In fact, it has the opposite effect to what you intend: most of us would have been unaware of this Parliamentary question, fascinated as we are – again (yawn) – by MP’s expenses this week. But now the Twittersphere is agog.

People on Twitter are suspicious of big corporations, especially when they behave in a heavy-handed way. We saw a smaller example of this in the summer, when Chicago-based Horizon Realty tried to sue a tenant for $50,000 over a single tweet that portrayed them in a bad light. The company desribed themselves as a “…a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” Oh dear. We don’t like that at all on Twitter. The resulting backlash propelled Horizon to the top trending topic, and they apologised, but with their reputation damaged perhaps somewhat more than by the orignal tweet.

As Techcrunch Europe said this evening: “There’s nowhere to hide if your name trends on Twitter. Is there, Trafigura?”

Related articles

• The Day Twitter Destroyed a Gagging Order (onemanandhisblog.com)
• Note to Trafigura/Carter Ruck: you can’t suppress Twitter (blogherald.com)
• Guardian gagged from reporting parliament (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Twitter users undermine attempt to gag UK media (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Did the Guardian use Twitter as a weapon of free speech? (inquisitr.com)

Yes, over the weekend more Reefer Madness style moral panic about social networks broke loose. This week’s contender for the Susan Greenfield Award for Utter Nonsense Talked about Social Networks was Archbishop Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. He suggested that Facebook and MySpace can lead children to commit suicide. And he’s not alone in making such wild, unfounded claims.

In February, we had Professor Greenfield’s speculation in the Daily Mail that social networking sites harm children’s brains and may lead to autism. Also that month, Dr Aric Sigman stuck his own tabloid oar in, with fears that Facebook may cause cancer.

Both were roundly criticised by Dr Ben Goldacre on Newsnight, who argued that “this is Baroness Greenfield unfortunately abusing her position in order to give extra weight to conjecture and opinion”. Her piece on Newsnight looks less like a contribution to rational scientific debate, and more like a hoodwinked celeb on a Chris Morris show – specifically Neil Fox’s statement on the spoof current affairs series Brass Eye that “there’s no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact“. The Baroness almost delivers that line verbatim.

Now the church is weighing into the debate too, with assumption, speculation, conjecture and fear – but without actual evidence. What’s going on here?

This doesn’t seem much different to any previous technology-based moral panic, whether about television, cars or the telephone. Technology itself is neutral – nuclear fission may be used to create bombs or energy. The impact technology has on society is a complex, fascinating topic – and one worthy of research rather than tabloid speculation.

When public figures  make alarmist pronouncements on social media they neither understand nor use, they contribute little to public understanding. It’s fashionable in some quarters to rejoice in one’s own bewilderment about social media. Radio 4 is my favourite organ of ignorance in the UK, from arched-eyebrowed interviews  on the Today programme that just stop short of including the word ‘new-fangled’, to Will Self on Any Questions saying “the only way I would twitter is if a songbird flew into my mouth” – to squeals of delight from the audience, one of whom ‘admitted’ to using Twitter. But when such ignorance becomes judgemental warning, there’s something wrong.

Social networking sites are neither a Good Thing nor a Bad Thing. They’re just a thing, a tool, another way to communicate, publish and share information. With 200 million users on Facebook, an exploding Twitter population of 45 million, and more and more of our time spent online, they appear here to stay. Yes, there is bullying, spam and porn. There is also online support, fundraising, and philanthropy. Just like the Internet. Just like real life.

Social media isn’t for everyone – and using it depends on your attitude to openness, transparency and risk. But if you have something to say, information to share, a cause to raise awareness of, or even something to sell – it’s worth a look. You won’t get cancer, go mad or kill yourself. Really – don’t have nightmares.

See also:

• Bad Science: “Facebook causes cancer” Ben Goldacre’s blog, complete with references to actual research, 24 Feb 09
• Is Facebook damaging your brain? (video) Guardian interview with Susan Greenfield, 25 Feb 09

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