Blogging is a public activity with no right to anonymity, the high court ruled today in a decision expected to have far-reaching repercussions for thousands of bloggers who keep their identities secret. Richard Horton had obtained a temporary injunction against the Times after a reporter discovered he was the officer behind the NightJack blog, which attracted hundreds of thousands of followers to its behind-the-scenes commentary on policing. Horton, a detective constable with the Lancashire constabulary, prevented the Times from revealing his identity after arguing the paper would be putting him at risk of disciplinary action for disclosing confidential information about prosecutions within the force. However, in a landmark judgment Mr Justice Eady overturned the injunction, stating that Horton, whose blog at one time had around 500,000 readers a week, had "no reasonable expectation of privacy".
Richard Horton had obtained a temporary injunction against the Times after a reporter discovered he was the officer behind the NightJack blog, which attracted hundreds of thousands of followers to its behind-the-scenes commentary on policing.
Horton, a detective constable with the Lancashire constabulary, prevented the Times from revealing his identity after arguing the paper would be putting him at risk of disciplinary action for disclosing confidential information about prosecutions within the force.
However, in a landmark judgment Mr Justice Eady overturned the injunction, stating that Horton, whose blog at one time had around 500,000 readers a week, had "no reasonable expectation of privacy".
An injunction against publication is a pretty serious matter, so I'm not surprised it wasn't upheld here.
If so, why the double standard?
If not, what's the big deal?
(I am not a lawyer, etc) The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
I've been told that I shouldn't work for a competing magazine even though I'm not a full time employee, have no benefits of any kind, and I'm certainly not being paid a retainer. Being pseudonymous solves that problem.
Anonymity isn't the same as writing pseudonymously. The point here is that the writer was posting anonymously - the pseudonym was just a cover.
Potentially he was posting anonymously in the public interest as a whistleblower, which is one angle that could have been made more of.
If people are forced to give up anonymity online, blogging gets much less interesting. And much less useful.
There's a series of anonymously-written books in the UK about a woman who works as a call girl. If that person was named, it would very likely damage the earning potential of those books.
Why should a journalist have the right to destroy someone's livelihood for the sake of a story?
