4 ms·

Forget the Streisand Effect, I Think We've Seen the Dawning of the Giggs Effect

39 points by grellas 15y ago

marshray 15y ago
So which footballer is going to be the first to get paid to change his name to "example.com", have an affair with a model, and obtain a superinjunction?
- dasil003 15y ago
  No one because footballers frequent neither reddit nor 4chan.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  It would be a kind of a waste of time when you're getting paid £130,000 per week to kick a ball around.
cstross 15y ago
Point of note: 0. I live in the UK. 1. I don't do Twitter. (I'm an old fogie.) 2. I don't follow Premiership Football. Or watch TV. I couldn't point to Ryan Giggs in a police ID parade ... 3. ... Nevertheless, without doing any searching, I learned who was behind the superinjunction last Thursday. The internet doesn't so much leak information as allow it to flood out incontinently through media such as mailing lists or IM or chat which are as easy to control as conversation in the street. And if Lord Judge thinks he can make an example of a journalist and a single internet service (Twitter) and make it stop, he's sadly deluded.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  1. I don't do Twitter. (I'm an old fogie.) Don't worry about this. I have never actually met anyone under the age of forty that used twitter for anything except perhaps extracting money from other people, and that doesn't really count. The only people I have met who use it seriously for social interaction were all "fogies," and they pretty much exclusively work in the media. I know a fair few hackers IRL as well, and none of us have ever used twitter with anything but reluctance. As far as I'm concerned, twitter is something mysterious done by other people on the internet, like fanfiction, and selling giant penises or whatever it is they do in second life. And, as we all know, the other people on the internet aren't real people anyway.
  - mahyarm 15y ago
    It's fairly opposite for me. I pretty much only use twitter to interact/follow other programmers
  - m0nty 15y ago
    In addition to the SMS service I integrated into our email system (so users could receive a text when they had email waiting) I also experimented with using Twitter for the same purpose - receive a tweet when you have email. My users are well-off, well-educated and ranging from OK with technology to expert. After six weeks, how many people had activated the Twitter service? Just me, and that only for testing. So what did I do? I removed it, and nobody commented or complained. Twitter == finger for media luvvies?
  - michaelbuckbee 15y ago
    I think I might be the only person on HN who actually really likes Twitter. I've found it to be a fantastic way to interact with other developers, find beta testers, head off customer freak outs (many people will complain of your app on Twitter instead of directly contacting you) and other really useful tasks.
motters 15y ago
The whole thing is an exercise in silliness, but it keeps newspapers in business I suppose.
andrewcooke 15y ago
for those that don't follow uk politics, this is hopeful news. the hope being that the uk's terrible laws related to censorship will break down. obviously, who ryan giggs has screwed is neither here nor there. but the same laws were famously used to shield a company - trafigura - that dumped toxic chemicals off the coast of africa. this doc from wikileaks http://www.wikileaks.ch/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep_2006 http://www.wikileaks.ch/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_... describes how "The UK media has been suppressed from mention the report or its contents since a secret gag order was issued against the Guardian newspaper on September 11, 2009." it was twitter that helped expose that, too - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/14/trafigura-fiasco-tears-up-textbook http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/...
StrawberryFrog 15y ago
This sums it up well: http://storify.com/themanwhofell/supeinjunction http://storify.com/themanwhofell/supeinjunction Freedom of information is good, but I'd rather this kind of fuss was used to find out about things like the Trafigura scandal. I don't even care at all if a footballer is playing away from home with some pop-tart. That's not surprising, nor is it worth reading in a newspaper in my opinion. It's sad that this is what it takes to motivate the public.
StrawberryFrog 15y ago
The judge says: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/1334.html http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/1334.html "It is obvious that if the purpose of this injunction were to preserve a secret, it would have failed in its purpose. But in so far as its purpose is to prevent intrusion or harassment, it has not failed. The fact that tens of thousands of people have named the claimant on the internet confirms that the claimant and his family need protection from intrusion into their private and family life. The fact that a question has been asked in Parliament seems to me to increase, and not to diminish the strength of his case that he and his family need that protection. The order has not protected the claimant and his family from taunting on the internet. It is still effective to protect them from taunting and other intrusion and harassment in the print media. "

39 points by grellas 15y ago

So which footballer is going to be the first to get paid to change his name to "example.com", have an affair with a model, and obtain a superinjunction?

dasil003 15y ago
No one because footballers frequent neither reddit nor 4chan.
JonnieCache 15y ago
It would be a kind of a waste of time when you're getting paid £130,000 per week to kick a ball around.

cstross 15y ago

Point of note: 0. I live in the UK. 1. I don't do Twitter. (I'm an old fogie.) 2. I don't follow Premiership Football. Or watch TV. I couldn't point to Ryan Giggs in a police ID parade ... 3. ... Nevertheless, without doing any searching, I learned who was behind the superinjunction last Thursday. The internet doesn't so much leak information as allow it to flood out incontinently through media such as mailing lists or IM or chat which are as easy to control as conversation in the street. And if Lord Judge thinks he can make an example of a journalist and a single internet service (Twitter) and make it stop, he's sadly deluded.

JonnieCache 15y ago
1. I don't do Twitter. (I'm an old fogie.) Don't worry about this. I have never actually met anyone under the age of forty that used twitter for anything except perhaps extracting money from other people, and that doesn't really count. The only people I have met who use it seriously for social interaction were all "fogies," and they pretty much exclusively work in the media. I know a fair few hackers IRL as well, and none of us have ever used twitter with anything but reluctance. As far as I'm concerned, twitter is something mysterious done by other people on the internet, like fanfiction, and selling giant penises or whatever it is they do in second life. And, as we all know, the other people on the internet aren't real people anyway.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  It's fairly opposite for me. I pretty much only use twitter to interact/follow other programmers
- m0nty 15y ago
  In addition to the SMS service I integrated into our email system (so users could receive a text when they had email waiting) I also experimented with using Twitter for the same purpose - receive a tweet when you have email. My users are well-off, well-educated and ranging from OK with technology to expert. After six weeks, how many people had activated the Twitter service? Just me, and that only for testing. So what did I do? I removed it, and nobody commented or complained. Twitter == finger for media luvvies?
- michaelbuckbee 15y ago
  I think I might be the only person on HN who actually really likes Twitter. I've found it to be a fantastic way to interact with other developers, find beta testers, head off customer freak outs (many people will complain of your app on Twitter instead of directly contacting you) and other really useful tasks.

motters 15y ago

The whole thing is an exercise in silliness, but it keeps newspapers in business I suppose.

andrewcooke 15y ago

for those that don't follow uk politics, this is hopeful news. the hope being that the uk's terrible laws related to censorship will break down. obviously, who ryan giggs has screwed is neither here nor there. but the same laws were famously used to shield a company - trafigura - that dumped toxic chemicals off the coast of africa. this doc from wikileaks http://www.wikileaks.ch/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep_2006 http://www.wikileaks.ch/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_... describes how "The UK media has been suppressed from mention the report or its contents since a secret gag order was issued against the Guardian newspaper on September 11, 2009." it was twitter that helped expose that, too - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/14/trafigura-fiasco-tears-up-textbook http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/...

StrawberryFrog 15y ago

This sums it up well: http://storify.com/themanwhofell/supeinjunction http://storify.com/themanwhofell/supeinjunction Freedom of information is good, but I'd rather this kind of fuss was used to find out about things like the Trafigura scandal. I don't even care at all if a footballer is playing away from home with some pop-tart. That's not surprising, nor is it worth reading in a newspaper in my opinion. It's sad that this is what it takes to motivate the public.

StrawberryFrog 15y ago

The judge says: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/1334.html http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/1334.html "It is obvious that if the purpose of this injunction were to preserve a secret, it would have failed in its purpose. But in so far as its purpose is to prevent intrusion or harassment, it has not failed. The fact that tens of thousands of people have named the claimant on the internet confirms that the claimant and his family need protection from intrusion into their private and family life. The fact that a question has been asked in Parliament seems to me to increase, and not to diminish the strength of his case that he and his family need that protection. The order has not protected the claimant and his family from taunting on the internet. It is still effective to protect them from taunting and other intrusion and harassment in the print media. "