Twitter will notify users accused of gagging order breaches

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Source: The Guardian

Twitter will notify its users before handing their personal information to UK authorities seeking to prosecute them over alleged breaches of privacy injunctions, a senior executive at the company said on Thursday.

Asked about the escalating dispute over gagging orders in Britain, Twitter's general manager of European operations, Tony Wang, said: "Platforms should have responsibility not to defend the user, but to protect that user's right to defend him or herself."

Twitter was thrown into the centre of the storm over privacy injunctions on Friday when it emerged a footballer launched legal action against the social network in connection with an alleged affair with the former Big Brother contestant, Imogen Thomas.

This prompted the player to be named by even more Twitter users and on Monday Lib Dem MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to name Manchester United's Ryan Giggs as the footballer behind the high-profile privacy injunction. The injunction remains in place.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/25/twitter-privacy-injunction-battle

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1. Funny: gagging twitterers

"We're about to gag order and prosecute you, don't you feel better now?"