Take Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, who said yesterday,

“Technology, and Twitter in particular, is making a mockery of the privacy laws that we have and we do need to think about the regulatory environment that we have.”

The mainstream media, of course, never miss an opportunity to tell their readers that the Internet is the modern-day equivalent of the Wild West, as the Indy ably demonstrates in “Media freedoms in the balance”:

“Mr Hunt raised for the first time the possibility of a new watchdog to ensure that social media such as Twitter and Facebook were subject to controls similar to those faced by the press and broadcasters, saying there may be a case for converging the regulation of traditional and new media.”

And, from this article in the Telegraph:

“Media outlets are supposed to be prevented from disclosing their names by a series of super-injunctions, which prevent them from being identified. Both Twitter and Facebook, however, are based in the US and outside the jurisdiction of British courts.”

The thing is, the politicians and the media seem to be forgetting that this isn’t a problem caused by social media. In fact, this “problem” has existed in one form or another for years. Go back to Jeremy Hunt’s quote and substitute “The foreign newspapers” for “Technology, and Twitter” and you’ll see what I mean.

Over the years, there have been countless examples where injunctions issued in England have no bearing on what gets published by the rest of the world (and rightly so). Here are two such examples – one fairly recent, and one from 2003:

• Irish Times publishes details of Tiger Wood’s injunction against the UK press.
• Prince Charles secures an injunction against the press in England and Wales, but the allegations appear in Italian newspapers.

Sure, the internet means more people in the UK have easier access to that censored information, but is that the only reason to act on this now?  I smell a rat – the Govt seems to be worryingly open to censoring websites at the behest of wealthy groups with Big Media interests; from there, is it such a big leap to include censorship of overseas websites that host injunction-breaking information, too?

The story unfolds like an episode of 24, with this poor chap being followed on CCTV cameras, which seem to litter the streets of Britain in greater numbers than cigarette butts, before armed police swooped and carted him to have his fingerprints mugshot and DNA sample taken.

The frightening thing about this story isn’t that the guy was arrested at gunpoint – a member of the public called it in, and the police have a duty to act, and where weapons are suspected, of course, they require an armed response. No, the frightening thing is this quote from the Staffordshire Police (my emphasis):

…the man was released and taken home, as no further action was required.

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’ll tell you what action is required: By the police’s own admission, the guy is innocent. That means his fingerprints, mugshot and DNA information has no place in a criminal database, and it should be removed.