Star wars: Celebrities and their super-injunctions

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

As the internet grows, it is becoming close to impossible to control, making for some interesting dramas.

Here in New Zealand, our most high-profile case has probably been the the court name suppression breaches that got the legal fraternity’s knickers in something of a knot via Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil blog.

On the other side of the world at the moment, there’s big debate going on over Twitter and the outing of naughty celebrities who had what are being called super-injunctions, stopping the media from publishing details of their sordid sex romps (is there any other kind of sex romp?), lies, cheating and dirty dealings. In fact, the media hasn’t even been allowed to name the celebrities who have won these “super-injunctions”.

Then along came Twitter. The internet, and in particular social networking, has become the go-to place to get all the dirt. Want to know which celebrity was paying hookers or in court? You’ll find it online.

Slater is not a fan of New Zealand’s name suppression laws and now has the claim to fame of being the first Kiwi blogger to be charged with breaching a name suppression order after he revealed the identity of an entertainer and an Olympian who were both facing sexual offence charges.

Sure, he was fined and the average Joe Bloggs might think twice about breaching one of these court-imposed orders as openly as Slater did, but that doesn’t mean the information isn’t being shared via emails and on message boards, Twitter and Facebook.

On Twitter, the names of the British celebrities and their super-injunctions are out there and while I’m not going to name any of them here who haven’t commented on the situation themselves, I don’t really care much about who or what they are doing anyway. Except for poor old Jemima Khan, who is denying the rumours that she is one of the celebs to have a super injunction, in her case to stop publication of “intimate” photos of her with Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

She’s denying the photos and relationship even exist and says it’s been like waking up to a nightmare.

Poor girl. If they’re going to start rumours about her getting up close and personal with some dude, surely they could have made it someone like George Clooney.

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