Should we all be getting the Twitter 'jitters'? – Be careful what you say online

http://ow.ly/bgEpd

An article by Susan McLean and Alistair Maughan posted on the Morrison Foerster  website as a Client Alert

This article is specific to UK law, and looks at various UK laws that are being re-purposed, and used to regulate the use of Twitter and social media posts.

The article mentions the following UK laws and regulations, which have been used in connection to "Tweets" posted on Twitter, although such laws were not originally established for such a reason:


COMMUNICATIONS ACT 2003 (Artilce states: "In 2011, there were 2,000 prosecutions in the UK under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.");

MALICIOUS COMMUNICATIONS ACT 1988;

CONTEMPT OF COURT ACT 1981;

SERIOUS CRIME ACT 2007; and

DEFAMATION ACT 1996

The article states, "As in other countries, a whole host of UK laws that were designed in an age before social media – even, in some cases, far before the Internet as we know it – are now being used to regulate digital speech. Digital speech, by its very nature, has permanent records that are easily searchable, making the police and the prosecution’s job much easier. Accordingly, these types of cases are only going to increase, and it will be interesting to see where the UK courts decide to draw the line between freedom of expression and the law."