PR Company, Internet Marketing

Superinjunctions – do you opt for a PR agency or a lawyer?

It’s all getting out of hand. The papers are giving clues about superinjunctions that we, the public, aren’t supposed to know exists and Twitter is buzzing with speculation where names of footballers and actors who may or may not be guilty of infidelities being exchanged between anonymous users.

Thanks to the anonymity that Twitter and other social networking sites can offer, it has become much easier to break superinjunctions and evade prosecution. Yet, because Twitter is not responsible for content published so cannot be sued for breaching superinjunctions.

Two of the women caught up in the middle of the scandal, Helen Wood and Big Brother 7 contestant Imogen Thomas have both been outed as having slept with the men at the centre of the superinjunctions and both have complained that they have been thrown to the lions as they don’t have the money to protect their own identities. Regardless of whether this is fair on the women involved or not, there have been calls for the government to redress the balance of privacy vs freedom of speech so that complete privacy is only available to the super-wealthy.

In the US, privacy and freedom of speech laws are completely different to the UK. A superinjunction would never get through in the US because it violates the principle of free speech. The trouble is that anyone can say anything and claim “free speech”, just as footballer David Beckham found out when he tried to sue In Touch magazine for printing claims that he had paid for services with prostitute Irma Nici. Under US law, his lawyer had to prove the claims had been printed with malice and whilst the court noted that there were factual inaccuracies, Irma Nici still had a right to free speech. Beckham can use for libel and fortunately for him, money isn’t an issue but it is a costly venture and the damage has already been done.

As a PR agency, reputation management is a difficult area to work in, it can take years to rebuild the reputation of someone who has enlisted your services, you have to be discrete and strategic in your approach as there is no quick fix. Some of the best stories never make it in to the newspaper because of great PR people so why use a superinjunctions when a good PR agency can handle a public relations crisis at a time when superinjunctions themselves are so very controversial?

What do you think about superinjunctions? Do you think they remove the need for reputation management from a PR agency or the lazy PR’s way out? Tell us what you think.

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